"...Scot Duncan, executive director of Alabama Audubon, called the “pink wave” of flamingos from Hurricane Idalia, which pushed an estimated 150-plus birds into the eastern U.S. on August 30, “truly phenomenal.” The species, which typically ranges throughout the Caribbean and northern South America, has been spotted as far north as Wisconsin and along Lake Michigan—as well as in the Carolinas, Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Florida, and Alabama—in recent weeks. “No one has ever seen anything like this,” Duncan says.

All of the displaced birds that had bands on their legs came from the Yucatán, says Jennifer McKay, a wildlife biologist with the Bird Banding Laboratory of the U.S. Geological Society’s Eastern Ecological Science Center. She says it will be interesting to talk with bird banders in Mexico next year to see how many flamingos currently in the U.S. are spotted back in the Yucatán during the summer and fall breeding and nesting season. 'I expect the majority of the flamingos that have come up in the hurricane, especially the ones very far north now, are going to want to get out of dodge pretty quick,' she says..."