Local News

Was that a flamingo on Cape Cod? Yes, bird watchers say.

Locals documented seeing a flamingo off the coast of Dennis on Sunday. There have been no sightings since.

Multiple Cape Cod residents reported seeing a flamingo in Dennis on Sunday, June 2. Courtesy of Fifi Gifford

June 4, 2024

2 minutes to read

No, the photos are not photoshopped or AI-generated. A flamingo really was off the coast of Cape Cod.

According to Mark Faherty, a science coordinator at Mass Audubon, two Cape Cod residents have spotted and documented an American Flamingo off the shores of Chapin Beach in Dennis on Sunday.

Bird watchers say this is a legitimate sighting, especially since there is well-documented evidence of a flamingo off of Long Island, New York on Friday and Saturday.

There have been no sightings of the famous flamingo since, according to Faherty.

“Who knows where it will turn up next?” he asked on Tuesday.

Faherty said there are no records of wild flamingos in Massachusetts. However, sightings of flamingos that had escaped from private owners have occurred in the past.

The determination of whether this is the first wild flamingo in the state is up to the Massachusetts Avian Records Committee. The group of volunteers decides whether or not a rare bird is in the state based on evidence and determines the state list.

Also on Sunday, researchers spotted an orca, or killer whale, near Chatham, marking two rare animal sightings on Cape Cod in one day.

Where did the Cape Cod flamingo come from?

Questions are still swirling about where this bird originated.

In late August of 2023, according to NOAA and news reports, Hurricane Idalia, which made landfall in Florida as a category three hurricane, displaced flocks of flamingos across the U.S. Flamingos were found along the eastern seaboard as far north as Pennsylvania.

Of course, the movement of flamingos as a result of the hurricane was months ago.

Since then, a lot has happened (including an entire winter), leaving a big gap to contend with regarding where the bird came from.

The fact that a flamingo landed off the shores of Cape Cod is “very strange,” Faherty said. He said the weather is nice in Dennis now, “not terribly cold.” But, he said, flamingos are typically found in warm places and tend to breed in the Caribbean.

Flamingos feed on tiny plankton, which can be found across the coast, eliminating the theory that it was following a food source.

But if the bird returns, it should be easy to notice, Faherty said. Flamingos tend to like big, open, shallow waters and stand out in the open, which makes them easy to spot.

One of the people who sighted the bird off of Dennis declined to speak with Boston.com. The other, Sam Roth, who collaborated on the claim, could not be reached at the time of publication.

Faherty hopes another sighting will happen soon.

“It’s wandering; it’s following its heart,” said Faherty on the flamingo. “Not all that wander are lost.”