Four flamingo chicks have hatched at the World of Birds Wildlife sanctuary in Hout Bay, a first at the site since the first generation of chicks arrived from Namibia 15 years ago.
Two small, dark grey, downy Greater Flamingo chicks with tiny pink beaks were found in the nests in the past week and another two on New Year's Day.
A batch of flamingo chicks arrived 15 years ago when they were rescued from Etosha salt pans in Namibia and taken to various locations when the water dried up in the middle of the crucial hatching stage, forcing the parents to abandon their chicks.
"For the past few years there have been many breeding attempts at the World of Birds, sometimes even two or three times in a year," said World of Birds owner Walter Mangold.
"But every time success seemed close there were drastic weather changes and the efforts abruptly ended."
Greater flamingos are not usually said to breed in the Western Cape due to unfavourable weather conditions and fairly good rainfall.
Despite attempts by staff at the sanctuary to improve breeding conditions by going as far as adding more water to the nesting area, loosening the soil to make it easier for the birds to build the nest cones and adding special binding agents to the soil to make it easier to hold the nests together, batches of eggs still yielded no live chicks, said Mangold.
By December up to 20 nests made of mud could be seen towering above the two shallow ponds in the small marshy area in the enclosure of the sanctuary in Hout Bay.
Although some of the eggs had been stolen by scavenger birds and others had fallen out of the nest, staff then removed some eggs and put them into an incubator.
Sanctuary manager Hendrik Louw said: "This being the first time, all our staff are over the moon at this achievement."
Uncertain if next year would yield the same result, Louw said flamingos had been known to skip up to five years after one breeding period in the wild.
"We are still hopeful and will do all that we possibly can to have the same result again," he said. - Staff Reporter