Rachelle Vance was decided to see a flamingo. Two months after Hurricane Idalia swept a pink wave of the gangly birds by means of Florida and past in August 2023, the photographer from Crystal River dropped her canine on the sitter and packed her journey trailer. She crossed the state along with her kayak, digital camera, and hope, however she struck out. She tried two extra occasions with no luck.
Sighting the hen
In July of 2026, her persistence lastly paid off. Vance noticed not one American Flamingo however a flock of them within the shallow waters at Merritt Island Nationwide Wildlife Refuge on two subsequent mornings. She couldn’t have been happier. However upon her return house, after sifting by means of her 4,000-plus pictures, she realized she had captured one thing particular: One of many birds within the flock wore a steel band on one leg.
Vance rapidly popped some pictures, together with a close-up of the band, into an e-mail to Audubon Florida along with her sighting report: On Sunday, July 12, there have been six, however 4 flew off early. On Monday, she noticed all six once more, they usually stayed collectively on or close to the sandbar as they fed and groomed themselves.
“I used to be past thrilled to spend time with these flamingos! I felt honored and grateful,” says Vance. “I want these flamingos the most effective and hope they keep wholesome, and Florida does the whole lot we are able to to make their time right here secure. I’ve pictures from yearly!” she concludes.
Submitting the report
At Audubon workers’s suggestion, Vance submitted her sighting to the Fowl Banding Laboratory, housed on the USGS Jap Ecological Science Middle. On the similar time, Audubon’s Everglades Analysis Station workers started pondering the hen’s origin. Since 2015, Audubon’s State Director of Science Jerry Lorenz, PhD, participated in banding two American Flamingos in Florida, utilizing coloured, alpha-numeric tags in addition to steel bands. Scientists later reported a kind of birds, dubbed Peaches, nesting within the Yucatán.
Audubon’s Wading Fowl Specialist Shauna Sayers decided from the hardly legible numbers in Vance’s close-up photograph that scientists doubtless banded the hen in Mexico! The science middle workforce despatched Vance’s photograph to the Flamingo Working Group, and shortly thereafter, a response got here from Jennifer McKay, the Fowl Band Laboratory liaison for the Flamingo Working Group.
“I’ve been getting many pictures of this hen over the previous few weeks. Sadly, not one of the pictures have had sufficient numbers seen to course of till now,” says McKay, who additionally obtained pictures from different photographers exhibiting no less than one extra banded flamingo in the identical space.
What we realized about this hen
McKay reached out to her contact within the Yucatán with the band quantity, and inside per week, Vance and the Flamingo Working Group realized extra about Flamingo #00183. In accordance with the FlamencoLab Laboratory of Ecology and Conservation of the Caribbean Flamingo, scientists banded the hen as a chick in August of 2016 at Ría Lagartos Biosphere Reserve, Yucatán, Mexico. Along with a steel band, #00183 obtained a yellow, alpha-coded plastic band, which apparently fell off someday earlier than the primary reported sighting of it in August 2024 at Merritt Island Nationwide Wildlife Refuge. Photographers and flamingo lovers with recognizing scopes have reported seeing #00183 a number of occasions since then.
Flamingo fundamentals
The American Flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber), additionally referred to as the Caribbean Flamingo, is a big species of flamingo native to the West Indies, northern South America, and the Yucatán Peninsula. It’s one in every of six species worldwide within the Phoenicopteridae household and one in every of 4 discovered within the Western Hemisphere.
American Flamingos are partially migratory and extremely cellular, touring extensively searching for appropriate habitat. Scientists suppose that the flamingos delivered to Florida by Hurricane Idalia have been within the means of migrating between the Yucatán and Cuba once they obtained blown off beam. American Flamingos sometimes stay 20 to 30 years within the wild however usually stay for much longer in captivity.
Why reporting sightings issues
The dimensions of the challenges going through birds and the planet is daunting, and banded hen sighting studies are vitally vital to the conservation and long-term survival of lots of our most imperiled hen species. Beginner hen watchers and photographers play important roles on this effort.
Anybody who can safely get numbers from a hen’s band, both by means of binoculars, scope, or photograph, is inspired to report it at www.reportband.gov. Studies enormously improve our collective understanding of the species’ actions, longevity, and habitat use.
