Flamingos flying

Flamingos are found wherever their food source is found, which is a microscopic prawn-like creature, found in certain types of salt pans and lagoons. The colour of their feathers is from their food, so if they are in captivity and do not have access to the prawns, then their feathers will be much paler. The painting of these flamingos came from the Magkadikadi Pans, in the Kalahari Desert of Botswana where I worked for a few months. The giant salt pans are part of what was a massive inland sea, or super-lake, which stretched across the length and breadth of Southern Africa. Present day, all that is left are these salt pans, which stretch out flat and as far as the eye can see. Dry as a bone in winter, as soon as the rains begin, they start to fill up, but only to about 3 foot deep, making it ideal for flamingos to create their annual colonies for breeding, safe from predators in the middle of the pans.