Flamingo in the context of "Hamsa (bird)"

Veneto, officially the Region of Veneto, is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the north-east of the country. It is the 4th most populous region in Italy, with a population of 4,851,851 as of 2025. Venice is the region's capital while Verona is the largest city.

Veneto was part of the Roman Empire until the 5th century AD. Later, after a feudal period, it was part of the Republic of Venice until 1797. Venice ruled for centuries over one of the largest and richest maritime republics and trade empires in the world. After the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna, the former Republic was combined with Lombardy and re-annexed to the Austrian Empire as the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, until that was merged with the Kingdom of Italy in 1866, as a result of the Third Italian War of Independence and of a plebiscite.

Carotenoids (/kəˈrɒtɪnɔɪd/) are yellow, orange, and red organic pigments that are produced by plants and algae, as well as several bacteria, archaea, and fungi. Carotenoids give the characteristic color to pumpkins, carrots, parsnips, corn, tomatoes, canaries, flamingos, salmon, lobster, shrimp, and daffodils. Over 1,100 identified carotenoids can be further categorized into two classes – xanthophylls (which contain oxygen) and carotenes (which are purely hydrocarbons and contain no oxygen).

All are derivatives of tetraterpenes, meaning that they are produced from 8 isoprene units and contain 40 carbon atoms. In general, carotenoids absorb wavelengths ranging from 400 to 550 nanometers (violet to green light). This causes the compounds to be deeply colored yellow, orange, or red. Carotenoids are the dominant pigment in autumn leaf coloration of about 15-30% of tree species, but many plant colors, especially reds and purples, are due to polyphenols.

Narta Lagoon (Albanian: Laguna e Nartës) is a lagoon of the Adriatic Sea on the Mediterranean Sea in the central coast of Albania. The lagoon extends north of the Bay of Vlorë on the eastern shore of the Strait of Otranto and is separated from the sea by a narrow littoral strip, consisting of an alluvial dune. It has a surface area of 41.8 km (16.1 sq mi) with a maximal depth of 1.5 m (4.9 ft).

It is situated within the boundaries of the Vjosa Wild River National Park, and has been recognised as an important Bird and Plant Area of international importance. As of May 2020, it is home to 3,000 flamingos. It is formed by the constant accumulation of solid flow of the Vjosa River, which originates within the Pindus Mountains close to the border between Albania and Greece.

Filter feeders are aquatic animals that acquire nutrients by feeding on organic matter, food particles or smaller organisms (bacteria, microalgae and zooplanktons) suspended in water, typically by having the water pass over or through a specialized filtering organ that sieves out and/or traps solids. Filter feeders can play an important role in condensing biomass and removing excess nutrients (such as nitrogen and phosphate) from the local waterbody, and are therefore considered water-cleaning ecosystem engineers. They are also important in bioaccumulation and, as a result, as indicator organisms.

Filter feeders can be sessile, planktonic, nektonic or even neustonic (in the case of the buoy barnacle) depending on the species and the niches they have evolved to occupy. Extant species that rely on such method of feeding encompass numerous phyla, including poriferans (sponges), cnidarians (jellyfish, sea pens and corals), arthropods (krill, mysids and barnacles), molluscs (bivalves, such as clams, scallops and oysters), echinoderms (sea lilies) and chordates (lancelets, sea squirts and salps, as well as many marine vertebrates such as most species of forage fish, American paddlefish, silver and bighead carps, baleen whales, manta ray and three species of sharks—the whale shark, basking shark and megamouth shark). Some water birds such as flamingos and certain duck species, though predominantly terrestrial, are also filter feeders when foraging.

Wading birds, also known in North America as waders, are members of several families of long-legged birds found in semi-aquatic ecosystems. Wading birds are not a monophyletic group and different authors classify different families as wading birds. The classification always includes the families Phoenicopteridae (flamingos), Ciconiidae (storks), Threskiornithidae (ibises and spoonbills), Ardeidae (herons, egrets, and bitterns), and the extralimital families Scopidae (hamerkop) and Balaenicipitidae (shoebill) of Africa. These were once classified together in the order Ciconiiformes based on overall similarity in anatomy and ecology, as well as some molecular data. However recent genomic studies have found that this group to be polyphyletic, with flamingos being more closely related to grebes while ibises, herons, the hamerkop and the shoebill are more closely related to pelicans. As a result of these changes flamingos are placed in their own order Phoenicopteriformes and Ciconiiformes are solely restricted to the storks. The rest of the waders have been reclassified into the order Pelecaniformes.

Other families that may be classified as wading birds include Gruidae (cranes) and Aramidae (limpkin). Unlike the previously mentioned families, cranes and the limpkin were never thought to be closely related to the heron-like birds and have always been classified as members of the order Gruiformes. Sunbitterns, the only member of the family Eurypygidae in the order Eurypygiformes, may also be considered to be a wading bird. In addition, the Anhimidae (screamers) of the order Anseriformes may be classified as wading birds. They are commonly found wading in open marshes and weedy lakes.

Phoenicopteriformes /fiːnɪˈkɒptərɪfɔːrmiːz/ is a group of water birds which comprises flamingos and their extinct relatives. Flamingos (Phoenicopteriformes) and the closely related grebes (Podicipedidae) are contained in the parent clade Mirandornithes.