Fuente de Piedra Lagoon

The Laguna de Fuente de Piedra is a wetland in the province of Málaga in Spain. The water area is up to 6.5 kilometers long and 2.5 kilometers wide and covers 1,300 hectares. Parts of the area are protected. Since 1983, it falls under the Ramsar Convention.

Although there is a lake, the water is salty. The water level is relatively low and rarely exceeds one meter. In spring, the lake dries out and the salt crystallizes on the floor. Since Roman times to the 1950s, salt was mined here commercially.

The water area offers numerous bird species and food is an important resting place during migration. She is also a site of Spain's largest breeding colony of pink flamingos. In 1998, here is a Crèche was counted with 15,300 young birds. However, Pink Flamingos breed here, not every year, but only if the previous autumn and winter, the rainfall was sufficient so that a minimum water level is given.

Brooding on the Laguna de Fuente de Piedra adult flamingos are forced during the breeding season, to eat visit, the mouth of Guadalquivir and the Bay of Cadiz, in order to continue their breeding and rearing of the young birds can. These feeding grounds are removed from the breeding colony between 140 and 200 kilometers. The change in the feeding grounds or back to the breeding colony will take place during the night. For a distance you need to travel the parents birds, they need at least two hours. Most flamingos stay at least one day in the feeding grounds and return the next night back to replace either the other parent bird nesting or feeding the young bird. In some adult Pink Flamingos has observed, however, that they again leave immediately after feeding the young to the distant feeding grounds and not remain in the breeding colony. This means that a smaller number of breeding at Laguna de Fuente de Piedra Pink Flamingos travels at least 300 km in one night. These routes are considered the most food tickets, which are occupied for the bird family so far.