To live and thrive, the colonies of greater flamingos (Phœnicopterus roseus) need shallow salt or brackish waters rich in small organisms they find in coastal lagoons but also in salt lakes and other lake areas of all altitudes. Their natural environment little varies between the breeding season and the wintering period. The only difference is the emergence of silty banks likely to receive their nests which can just as easily be built in a more rudimentary way on beaches or even be almost nonexistent in the absence of clayey mud to shape them.