the peruvian flamingo

The Flamingo with its exotic appereance is a bird 1 to 1.40 meters height, long skinny neck and legs, black beak, white-pinkish body and red wings.Symbolically this bird stands for kindness and positive traits of character.
As they live in flocks, flamingos also denote sociability and sense of community. Actually during the time i visited its santuary they seemed to be tame but not enough to be touched by a human being.
Funnily they often stand on one leg, the other hidden beneath the body. It has been suggested the reason for this strange behaviour is that flamingos have the ability to go with have half of its body into a state of sleep, and when one side is rested, the flamingo will swap legs and then let the other half sleep. Perhaps also standing on one leg may allow the birds to conserve more body heat, given that they spend a significant amount of time wading in cold water. Interestingly Flamingos can both swim, and fly.
There’s an historical fact that depicts a vision of General Don Jose de San Martin (first president of Peru in its former times as an Independant Republic) who forsee the nacional flag of my country inspired in the red and white of this graceful bird.
Today flamingo populations are in danger to could undergo a rapid decline in their populations, since they live in large groups in concentrated numbers in fragile wetland habitats that could easily become polluted or fragmented.