For over thirty years, they've been one of the iconic images of Cagliari, and by extension, all of southern Sardinia. A pink patch that changes shape, shrinks, shifts, but never ceases to be noticed. Sa genti arrubia, as they call them, the pink flamingos are a constant presence on Cagliari postcards, familiar to anyone who's glanced at the city's wetlands at least once. Yet, these days, that patch seems to have faded.
At first glance, the flocks are sparser, the bodies of water emptier. From Bellarosa Maggiore to the Quartu salt flats, from the observation points on Monte Urpinu to those on Viale Colombo, the pink waders seem to be fewer.
Did they leave or simply hide? Are they suffering from the heat like us and preferring to seek a cooler place? Or did they simply run out of food and move on to find more?
The nesting node
The first data comes from the eyes. In places where thousands of flamingos congregated for months, far fewer are seen today. Something has changed, but before talking about a decline, we need to take a step back.
The decline, at least in part, was already evident at the start of the breeding season. In Bellarosa Maggiore, the large colony just outside Cagliari, fewer pairs arrived to nest than in previous years. This decline is part of a challenging environmental situation: the colony's banks continue to erode, and the available nesting spaces are shrinking. "Even though Cyclone Harry raised the water level," explains Vincenzo Tiana, president of the Molentargius Park Association, "the Park has made a major effort to control the Bellarosa Maggiore, which had submerged many nesting sites."
The breeding season, however, continued, though not at the same numbers as in previous years. The final tally has yet to be drawn: to know how many chicks have actually hatched and how many have fledged, we'll have to wait for the final counts to be completed. "But the season doesn't seem to be the worst," says ornithologist Sergio Nissardi, who also collaborates with the Molentargius Park. Meanwhile, the number of adults present in the Cagliari area has decreased. "They're probably a little fewer," he explains, "but even that 'fewer' is still a significant number." Estimates from recent days put the number of birds at approximately 2,000 to 4,000. This is a far cry from the number reached during the nesting season, when an estimated 7,000 pairs were recorded.
Nomads of the Mediterranean
But even these numbers must be interpreted with caution. In Cagliari, the flamingos could be in the same pond you're observing or a few kilometers away. "These days, for example," adds Nissardi, "the ponds on Viale Colombo are quite crowded: a few days ago there were over a thousand, with an estimate today of around 2,000 specimens." Making this reading even more difficult is the very nature of the flamingo. "It's an opportunistic animal," Nissardi defines it, "and its movements don't always follow easily predictable patterns."
After months spent in the same areas, birds can move on in search of new feeding grounds, especially when resources begin to dwindle. And then there are the juveniles. "When conducting studies, telemetry tools are used primarily on juveniles, to monitor post-juvenile dispersal," explains Nissardi, "and we see that the majority disperse throughout the Mediterranean. Only a minority remain in Sardinia." It's a constant coming and going across the sea, making it difficult to predict where the same birds will be in a few weeks. "Afterwards, other juveniles will arrive from France and Spain," adds Tiana. "We're part of a system of constant coming and going throughout the Mediterranean."
Heat and food
The heat question also remains. High temperatures like those seen recently might seem like an obvious explanation, but there's no evidence to establish a direct connection. "Flamingos are animals resistant to high temperatures; in fact, some even venture as far as Kenya." More interesting, according to Nissardi, is their relationship with food: "After months of exploiting the same environment, prey availability can change, and the birds may seek out less exploited ponds." This is a dynamic already observed in regional monitoring: as nesting progresses, the number of animals moving outside the colony's area increases.
The pink patch, in short, is never truly still. And at the end of the breeding season, it tends to become sparser. The final numbers and nesting balance will come with the next counts. Meanwhile, the great movement has already begun. However distant, dispersed, or disappeared they may seem, flamingos have a characteristic that has made them a part of Cagliari's landscape for over thirty years: they leave, but they always return.
Alessandra Ragas
