When park visitors saw a flash of pink, they weren’t seeing pink elephants.
Instead, what they spotted was very much real: a pair of vibrantly colored tropical birds seldom seen as far north as Ohio.
“Nope, you’re not hallucinating,” Ohio State Parks said in a Tuesday news release. “There really were flamingos at Caesar Creek State Park this weekend!”
Nope, you're not hallucinating. There really were flamingos at Caesar Creek State Park this weekend! 🦩🦩🦩They haven't been seen since Friday, but what a sight it was to see! Photo by Marcia Heil-Garber
Posted by Ohio State Parks on Tuesday, September 5, 2023
When contacted by McClatchy News, a spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources confirmed the sightings, adding that the creatures were discovered on Sept. 1.
“I don’t know of any other records of flamingos in Ohio,” Kathy Garza-Behr, a wildlife communications specialist at the DNR, told McClatchy News.
Two of the long-legged birds — one pink and one gray — were photographed wading in the shallow waters of a park lake.
In one photo, the pair can be seen foraging along the shore near a fake palm tree, conjuring images of the Bahamas, not the Buckeye State.
“Our Park Naturalist found a palm tree in the beach shelter house from our Meteor Shower Campout ‘Beach Luau,’” park officials said. “We set it out in hopes the flamingos would feel comfortable.”
But, in spite of any comforts conferred by the tree, the birds appeared to have left the area sometime around Sept. 1.
“Perhaps they are headed back south,” park officials said.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources does not list flamingos as a species found in the state. In fact, they’re not technically found in any U.S. states, according to the National Audubon Society.
“Until about 1900, flocks of flamingos from the Bahamas regularly migrated to Florida Bay, in what is now Everglades National Park,” the society’s website states. “Today, most flamingos seen on the loose in North America are considered suspect, as possible escapees from aviaries or zoos.”
It’s possible that the two flamingos seen in Ohio were blown off course by Hurricane Idalia, according to the nonprofit Ohio Wildlife Rehabilitators Association.
“These birds end up in new places and are called ‘vagrants,’” the organization said in a news release. “Unfortunately, nature is not always polite, and many of these birds are unable to find their way home and many likely do not survive.”
Other winged vagrants, including a brown booby and spoonbills, have been spotted in the state in recent years, according to the organization.
Flamingos were also seen on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, likely buffeted northward by Hurricane Idalia, McClatchy News reported.
Additional flamingo sightings were reported in Florida, Virginia, Tennessee and Alabama in the wake of the hurricane, Garza-Behr said.