ABSTRACT
Family Phoenicopteridae contains four species, with representatives in all the tropical and warm temperate areas of the world except Australasia. Two are found in the Afrotropical Region, and both have bred in Kenya. In Afrotropical region Greater flamingo is found in mainly east (E) and south (S) Africa, from the Red Sea coast along the lakes of the E rift valley and adjacent areas, and thence over much of the continent S of 15°S. L Elmenteita 62A is one of its very few major African breeding sites. In Kenyan region in contrast to the Greater Flamingo, the Lesser Flamingo feeds by filtration of suspended aquatic food, including that in aqueous films on mud flats. The main component of its diet is the unicellular blue-green alga Spirulina platensis that occurs in vast concentrations in the relatively shallow, closed drainage, soda lakes of the rift valley, which are thus its centres of population.
