Birders down on Cape Cod have been treated to a rare sight.
An American flamingo was spotted Sunday on Chapin Beach in Dennis, Massachusetts, according to the Cape Cod Times.
If the sighting is confirmed by the Massachusetts Avian Records Committee, it will mark the first flamingo sighting in the Bay State, the Cape Cod Times reported.
That follows numerous sightings of a flamingo on Friday and Saturday on Long Island in New York, according to observations tracked by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird website.
Mark Faherty, a science coordinator at the Mass Audubon Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, told WHDH TV that “there’s no real precedent for this.”
It’s not the first time an American flamingo has been seen this far north. In 2023, Hurricane Idalia blew flamingos as far away as Missouri, Ohio and Wsconsin, according to the Cape Cod Times.
Maine itself is no stranger to such transient birds. In 2018, a great black hawk, a native of Central and South America, became a celebrity when it settled down in Portland’s Deering Oaks Park to feast on its abundant squirrels.
But that story turned tragic when the hawk stuck around as winter set in. After being caught in a severe snowstorm, the hawk suffered massive frostbite and was ultimately euthanised.
The great black hawk has been mounted at the Maine State Museum in Augusta and immortalized in bronze in Deering Oaks Park.
Another rare bird spotted in Maine, the Steller’s sea eagle, fared better here. The native of Siberia was more suited to the cold and was a frequent sight for a spell along the coast.
What will become of the flamingo is anyone’s guess.
