Abstract
A long-term standardized capture-recapture program has been going on at several large breeding colonies in the Western Mediterranean, since 1977 in France, and 1986 in Spain. Tens of thousands of individuals have been ringed as chicks over the years, and many were subsequently reobserved as breeders. These data have been analyzed several times with increasingly complex capture-recapture models, the latest ones having a Hidden Markov Model structure (Pradel 2005). These models allowed progressively more detailed insight into the data. I will present two of the most recent findings: the tendency of flamingos to return to breed to their natal colony even when old (Balkiz et al. 2010) and the positive effect of breeding experience in breeding propensity (Pradel et al. 2012).