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Greater flamingo
बड़ा राजहंस
The taller, paler flamingo.
How to recognise it
Very tall and mostly white at rest, the pink showing as a flash on the wing when the flock takes off. The bill is pale with a clean black tip.
Where to see it
Jaipur
At Sambhar Salt Lake it is a regular winter visitor arriving in the second week of August, with more than 10,000 counted on one January day in 1998, and flocks also winter at Chandlai Lake on the Tonk road. Rajasthani calls the flamingo raj-hans, “the royal goose”, the same name a Sanskrit poet would use for the bird that separates milk from water; on a salt lake the name has stuck to a bird that literally filters its food.
Sambhar Salt Lake (in season) · Chandlai Lake (in season)
Mumbai
Flamingo flocks are now one of the few wildlife spectacles in India that happen inside a major city, visible from suburban trains and bridges.
Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary