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Five American flamingoes were sighted in Wisconsin from Sept. 22 to early October but have apparently flown out of the state. It was the first documented sighting of the species in state history.
The American flamingoes that enthralled wildlife watchers this fall in Wisconsin have apparently left the state.
The birds, three adults and two juveniles, were first spotted Sept. 22 at South Beach in Port Washington.
They flew off later that day and were relocated in the following days on Lake Petenwell, a Wisconsin River flowage in the central part of the state.
The flamingoes stayed at Petenwell through early October, according to avid birders and wildlife photographers who kept tabs on the birds.
Jeremy Meyer of Cudahy spotted all five there Oct. 6, and at least one was still present when he returned Oct. 8.
But when Tim Hahn of Waukesha visited Petenwell on Oct. 9 he couldn’t find a flamingo in three hours of searching from various vantage points.
And no report of a wild flamingo in Wisconsin has been made on eBird, a digital bird record system, since Oct. 8, said Ryan Brady, conservation biologist with the Department of Natural Resources.
“It would seem they moved on,” Brady said of the flamingoes.
The flamingoes appearance in Wisconsin was the first in state history, according to Mark Korducki, a member of the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology. The organization is the official keeper of state bird records.
American flamingoes are not migratory and typically live in a range including northern South America, eastern Mexico, islands in the Caribbean Sea, the Bahamas and southern Florida.
Wildlife biologists hypothesized the birds ended up in Wisconsin after they were pushed north in late August by the strong winds of Hurricane Idalia.
Prior to the landing in Port Washington, first-ever sightings of flamingoes were also made this year in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
As of late September, Wisconsin was the 12th and northern-most state to have a confirmed flamingo sighting.
The group of flamingoes drew a crowd of about 100 people to the Lake Michigan shore in Port Washington and later were a sensation on Lake Petenwell.
The flamingoes were one of several “celebrity” bird species to visit Wisconsin this year, including limpkin, roseate spoonbill and, in another state first, flame-colored tanager.
Brady said the whereabouts of the flamingoes was officially classified as “unknown,” leaving open multiple possibilities including flying back to the Caribbean or death.
However no flamingo carcass was found on Petenwell or anywhere else in Wisconsin and there was no severe cold snap or other weather event in early October that could have put the birds in immediate jeopardy.
As of Oct. 9 there was only one eBird sighting of a flamingo in the interior U.S., a single bird in Kansas, Brady said. After that, all October and November records show flamingoes only at coastal sites in the Gulf of Mexico or Atlantic.
The fate of the Wisconsin flamingoes will likely remain a mystery. None of the birds had a GPS tag or other banding that would allow identification.
But the departure of the tropical birds was expected as the weeks passed and weather turned colder. And nothing will minimize the wildlife wonder the birds aroused in Wisconsin this year, Brady said.
“It’s fascinating to have a species like this come on the scene,” Brady said. “Once in a lifetime, maybe? It’s remarkable it happened at all. I know those who were able to see the birds, and even those who read about them or saw photos, will remember it for a very long time.”
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