Hurricane Idalia may be directly responsible for this week’s flamingo-palooza in the Eastern United States.
The state’s trademark pink-plumed birds first emerged throughout the state’s beaches and the northern Gulf Coast when Hurricane Idalia roared over Florida. By Saturday, three days after landfall, sightings of flamingos had been reported in Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and Virginia.
Bird watchers and ornithologists reported sighting more than 150 flamingos over the course of four days.
Jeff Bouton, Kowa Sporting Optics’ sales and marketing manager for the birding and wildlife sectors in the Americas, was among the first to report the arrival of more than 70 birds in Florida.
The flamingos caused a social media frenzy, with birders from around the nation flocking to six different states in the hopes of seeing the pink, lanky wading birds.
Birds are occasionally blown away by storms and washed up on beaches. This event, which birders refer to as “fallout,” was made famous in the film “Big Year.” The film’s three characters meet up at a park after a storm to conduct some birding.
It’s not uncommon for a lone flamingo to appear in Florida after a storm. There are vast colonies of these birds all across the Caribbean, including the Yucatan, where Idalia slept for several days before flying up the Gulf of Mexico and into Florida.
However, Greg Neise, webmaster of the American Birding Association and administrator of its rare bird alert Facebook page, commented on the unusual amount of flamingos in so many locales.
A South Florida birder noticed bird bands on the legs of a flamingo in the Florida Keys last week, and several other birders were notified that the bands likely originated in Mexico’s Ria Lagartos Biosphere Reserve on the Yucatan Peninsula.
Wild flamingos observed in Florida in the past have been traced all the way back to the Yucatan Peninsula. The tall, lanky birds range in size from 47 to 55 inches. They are endemic to Florida, but their populations were drastically decreased owing to the plume trade in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Fortunately, they have become increasingly common in recent decades.