16.08.2006 Arnaud Béchet
For the second year in a row, the Greater Flamingo successfully bred at Ezzemoul (Algeria). Protection to the breeding colony was afforded by guards patrolling daily the site’s shores. Over 5 000 band reading were recorded during the breeding period.
The banding operation was carried out on 11 August and two hundred chicks were banded with rings bearing codes from A0|0A to A1|3Z.
At dawn, eighty beaters, mostly volunteers from the local community, helped drive a crèche, made up of an estimated 2000 chicks, and about four hundred of these were coaxed to enter the corral while the rest was allowed to escape. Ezzemoul, a salt lake in the Algerian Hauts Plateaux proved to be a though challenge even to very experienced ringers. The banding operation, the first of its kind in North Africa, was a success thanks in part to the technical support of Arnaud Bechet, Antoine Arnaud, Damien Cohez (Station Biologique de la Tour du Valat), Manuel Rendon Martos (Fuente de Piedra) and the financial support of the MAVA and the Laboratoire de Recherche des Zones Humides (University of Annaba, Algeria). A full account will be found in a future edition of “Flamingo”, the newsletter of the Flamingo Specialist Group.
Boudjema Samraoui
Dr. B. Samraoui
Laboratoire de Recherche des Zones Humides
4 rue Hassi-Beïda
Annaba, Algeria
Tel: 00 213 38 87 55 71
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