The Adelie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) is one of the most familiar and common Antarctic penguin species. Smaller in size than all the other species of penguins, Adelies are named after the wife of the French polar explorer, Dumont d’Urville. They can be found living in huge colonies on rocky coasts, islands, ice floes, beaches, and headlands along the coastline of Antarctica.

It is not uncommon to see thousands of penguins waddling and sliding comically to the edge of the water and dive headlong into the freezing Antarctic waters. No doubt Adelie penguins are powerful swimmers and are able to jump straight out of the water onto the land. They can also be spotted sledding downhill on their bellies.

Adelies have the classic penguin look with their white ‘tuxedo shirt’ front, black backs, wings and head, and the white rings around their eyes. Their beaks are reddish in color with a black tip. These penguins can grow to heights of up to 61cm and on an average weigh 4 to 5.5kg. Both the sexes have similar plumage.

As mentioned before, Adelie penguins form large colonies, some of which have over 200,000 pairs of birds. The breeding takes place on rocky islands and coasts, a perfect place for each mating pair to build a nest out of stones and pebbles. Around early November the female lays just two light-green eggs. Both the male and female take turns incubating the egg. However, the female takes the first turn to go back to the sea to forage for food. Meanwhile the male is left to take care of the egg, sometimes for up to ten days.

The eggs hatch after about 5 weeks, and for the first few weeks, the chicks are brooded closely by their parents. The chicks grow quickly matching the size of their parents in a matter of a few weeks. Adelie chicks grow the fastest of all penguins.

By the third or fourth week, they are introduced into nursery groups called ‘crèches.’ Here they huddle with other chicks for warmth and protection, leaving the parents free to go to sea to hunt krill (a shrimp-like crustacean) to keep up with their young ones’ appetite. When the parents return with food from the sea, they don’t simply hand it over to their chick. They make the chick chase them and catch the food. By late March, most of the chicks are able to swim. The Adelies then depart for the pack ice and the sea.

The greater flamingo or the Phoenicopterus ruber, as it is scientifically referred to, is a singular looking bird that can be easily identified by its brilliant pink plumage (sometimes with shades of crimson in it as well), pink legs, and down-turned bill. Although they are predominantly pink, greater flamingoes also have black on the tip of their bills and in their flight feathers.

If you’ve wondered why greater flamingoes are that peculiar shade of pink, here’s why. It’s because of the kind of diet they have. Flamingoes survive on mollusks, crustaceans, blue-green algae, and other invertebrates, which contain carotenids. When the carotenoids are metabolized by the liver, they break down into pink and orange pigments which are deposited on various parts of the body, such as the bill, feathers, and legs of the bird.

Where do flamingos live? Well, they usually live in environs that have lots of water and mud, like lakes or lagoons. Some of the places you are most likely to spot flamingos are tidal flats, mangrove swamps, and sandy islands. The depth of the water is very important to flamingoes since it aids not just in feeding but also in nesting.

Speaking of eating, the bill of the flamingo plays a very important role in the food gathering process. The thick down-turned bill helps in capturing food and filtering water. In fact, the keratinous plates called lamellae that line the insides of the bill, work in a manner similar to baleen filtration seen in some whales. Think of them as strainers that remove the food particles from the water.

Flamingoes live in colonies all around the year and one colony can have tens of thousands of tens of thousands of flamingos. They are capable of mating by the time they are six years old, and while there is no specific season for mating, it does appear to be related in some way to the rains. The breeding within the colony is synchronized to happen at the same time.

Flamingoes don’t nest every year and when they do, they lay a single large white egg. The nest, built of small stones, mud and feathers, resembles the shape of a volcano and can sometimes be as high as 12 inches. A pair of flamingoes will usually take about six weeks to build their nest, after which both parents take turns at incubating the egg for over four weeks.

Newly hatched chicks are not pink; rather they have white or gray down feathers. They also don’t have the down-turned bill; instead, it is straight and red in color. Parents are able to recognize their chicks by the sound of their voice. In about a week’s time, sometimes less, the chicks are ready to leave their nest. Once they do, all the fledglings are organized into a group, sort of like a crèche, where some adult birds take on the responsibility of teaching the young flamingo essential life skills.

This bird belongs to the family of seabirds that is typified by their ‘tube-noses.’ Other members of this family are petrels and shearwaters. This tube nose comes in especially handy for an albatross since it spends so much time at sea and survives on seawater. The salt in the water is excreted out of its body in drips from its ‘tube-nose,’ giving the impression that the bird is crying. Apart from seawater, they also need squid or schooling fish for sustenance.

The albatross has a wingspan of up to 11 feet, making it the longest wingspan amongst all birds. This formidable wingspan helps them glide for hours at an end, without feeling the need to rest or even flap their wings. They also enjoy floating on the surface of the sea, though this position can make them vulnerable to aquatic predators.

Even though there is no shelter from the elements of nature, an albatross prefers to nest on cliff edges. There is a reason behind choosing this peculiar location. Because of its size, it’s difficult for an albatross to become airborne from lower altitudes. However, the wind that hits the cliff helps them take off easily and smoothly.

Albatrosses are known to live up to 50 years of age. They only gather on land to breed, forming huge colonies on very remote islands. Some species of albatross mate for life and mating pairs produce only one egg every two years. Both parents take turns at caring for it and the incubation period is really long, sometimes up to 80+ days. The chicks are fed by the parents for 7-8 months, and young albatrosses are ready to fly within three to ten months. The young one will then leave the land and take to the seas for five to ten years, until they are sexual mature to breed themselves.

This grand and majestic bird, the pride of the seas is highly threatened. In fact, nineteen of the 21 species of albatross are on the verge of extinction. These birds are dying at the rate of one every five minutes. It is indeed ironic that the bird that evolved 50 million years ago could be nearly wiped out by just three decades of longline fishing. That, coupled with their low reproductive rates is making the albatross a highly threatened species.