One of the largest flamboyances of flamingos in a decade was recently spotted in the Everglades by avian ecologist and restoration scientist Mark Cook.
Cook said he stumbled upon the 125 American flamingos while conducting a wading bird survey along the Florida Bay coastline last week. The flamboyance is believed to be the largest one spotted in South Florida since 2014, when a group of 147 was observed in the northern part of the Everglades.
Cook said he continued his survey after taking pictures of the group.
"Unfortunately, it's almost impossible not to spook a large group of flamingos from a helicopter, and they rapidly took flight," he wrote in a Facebook post.
READ MORE: A flamingo was blown from Mexico to Florida during Idalia. He found his way back home
A week prior to his wading survey in Florida Bay, the scientist had spotted a group of around 30 flamingos in the northern Everglades that he believes likely to have joined the bigger flamboyance, he wrote.
Flamingos were uncommon sightings in South Florida until recently, since the native population was largely wiped out by hunters in the 18th century. After Hurricane Idalia hit the state in 2023, the wind scattered flamingos from nesting grounds in Mexico through Florida and as far up as Lake Michigan shore in Wisconsin.
"Flamingos are incredibly fast flyers and can travel large distances in a relatively short amount of time, so it wouldn't be surprising for them to move throughout South Florida and even among the local Caribbean islands on a regular basis," Cook wrote.
Cook oversees the annual South Florida wading bird surveys for the South Florida Water Management District. It's been going on for nearly 30 years.
Whether or not flamingos are nesting in Florida and reclaiming historic territory has been a matter of debate. In 2018, scientists unearthed evidence and last year Audubon Florida launched a count to help confirm the matter. But state wildlife officials say native flamingos were wiped out by plume traders and consider any sighted today as migrants from nonnative flamboyances or descendants of escaped captive birds.
Better monitoring to confirm if flamingos are remaining yearround and nesting in the state could lead to better protection for them.
Over the years, there have been banding efforts by researchers to track the travel patterns across breeding populations found in the Caribbean and Yucatan Peninsula.
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