Field Notes
The lesser flamingo is the smaller and pinker of our two flamingos, and its colour is borrowed entirely from its food — the blue-green algae it filters from shallow, alkaline water, which paints its plumage that improbable rose.
I photographed them at Jamnagar in Gujarat, one of the great wintering grounds for the species, including grey-brown juveniles not yet flushed with adult colour. Massed on open water, they are a study in soft pink against silver, and the challenge is finding order — a single bird, a reflection, a moment of behaviour — within the crowd.
