Florida Photographer Spots American Flamingo with Leg Band

Rachelle Vance was decided to see one other flamingo. Two months after Hurricane Idalia swept a pink wave of the gangly birds by way of Florida and past in August 2023, the photographer from Crystal River dropped her canines on the sitter and packed her journey trailer. She crossed the state along with her kayak, digicam, and hope. She lucked out—she noticed the swish waders that fall, and managed to get nice views of them once more annually since. But each makes an attempt in early 2026 had been fruitless.  

Sighting the chicken

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 National Wildlife Refuge on two subsequent mornings. She couldn’t have been happier. But upon her return house, after sifting by way of her 4,000-plus photographs, she realized she had captured one thing particular: One of the birds within the flock wore a metallic band on one leg.

Vance shortly popped some photographs, together with a close-up of the band, into an electronic 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, and so they stayed collectively on or close to the sandbar as they fed and groomed themselves.  

“I was beyond thrilled to spend time with these flamingos! I felt honored and grateful,” says Vance. “I wish these flamingos the best and hope they stay healthy, and Florida does everything we can to make their time here safe. I have photos from every year!” she concludes.

Submitting the report

At Audubon employees’s suggestion, Vance submitted her sighting to the Bird Banding Laboratory, housed on the USGS Eastern Ecological Science Center. At the identical time, Audubon’s Everglades Research Station employees started pondering the chicken’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 metallic bands. Scientists later reported a type of birds, dubbed Peaches, nesting within the Yucatán.

Audubon’s Wading Bird Specialist Shauna Sayers decided from the hardly legible numbers in Vance’s close-up picture that scientists possible banded the chicken in Mexico! The science heart group despatched Vance’s picture to the Flamingo Working Group, and shortly thereafter, a response got here from Jennifer McKay, the Bird Band Laboratory liaison for the Flamingo Working Group. 

“I have been getting many photos of this bird over the last few weeks. Unfortunately, none of the photos have had enough numbers visible to process until now,” says McKay, who additionally obtained photographs from different photographers exhibiting at the least one extra banded flamingo in the identical space.

What we discovered about this chicken

McKay reached out to her contact within the Yucatán with the band quantity, and inside every week, Vance and the Flamingo Working Group discovered extra about Flamingo #00183. According to the FlamencoLab Laboratory of Ecology and Conservation of the Caribbean Flamingo, scientists banded the chicken as a chick in August of 2016 at Ría Lagartos Biosphere Reserve, Yucatán, Mexico. In addition to a metallic 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 National Wildlife Refuge. Photographers and flamingo lovers with recognizing scopes have reported seeing #00183 a number of instances 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 is 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 seeking appropriate habitat. Scientists suppose that the flamingos dropped at Florida by Hurricane Idalia had been within the means of migrating between the Yucatán and Cuba after they obtained blown off track. American Flamingos sometimes reside 20 to 30 years within the wild however typically reside for much longer in captivity.

Why reporting sightings issues

The scale of the challenges going through birds and the planet is daunting, and banded chicken sighting experiences are vitally essential to the conservation and long-term survival of lots of our most imperiled chicken species. Amateur chicken watchers and photographers play vital roles on this effort.

Anyone who can safely get numbers from a chicken’s band, both by way of binoculars, scope, or picture, is inspired to report it at www.reportband.gov. Reports vastly improve our collective understanding of the species’ actions, longevity, and habitat use.