VERY INTERESTING RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN  GULL AND FLAMINGO,S

thanks for the  info

Hi Tania, a very big welcome from us and thanks for all the information. Things start making sense when we have your explanations.

You will see that we make for every new day another topic.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

The first breeding season on the flamingo island (Nov 2007 - May 2008) produced approx. 9000 chicks and 8517 nests were built/rebuilt by the flamingos (we counted the nests when we accessed the island to put up the webcam). The estimated number of adult flamingos on the island then was between 15000 -20 000 (counted on aerial photos). 

Only one I've seen so far sitting on 2 eggs. The third egg seems to be abandoned, but this bird was fiddling with it.

Today seems to be the first day this Grey-headed Gull started incubating a flamingo egg besides its own 2 eggs. It laid its eggs sometime after 15 October. I wonder if the egg just rolled into the gull's nest or whether it gathered it from somewhere nearby? These gulls eat flamingo eggs and chicks so it will be interesting to see whether the gull incubates the egg until it hatches or eats the egg at some stage or abandones the egg when its own chicks hatch.     

Yes, there are many that are sitting on flat nests made of a few clay bits and feathers and some odd eggs lying around that seem to be no-ones. I suspect the clay soil is too dry and not enough for them to build up large nests as they did last year. There has been too little rain so far this season.  

a broken egg

It almost looks like a egg creche.