It’s been said that Hurricane Idalia pushed a bunch of migrating birds to strange places.
That included the much-publicized incident of American Flamingos ending up at Fort DeSoto Park near St. Pete Beach. Weeks later, with less fanfare, a group of flamingos showed up in the Indian River near Haulover Canal in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.
There have been flamingos in the Indian River before, but it is pretty rare. I got up very early on a Saturday morning to try to get some pictures of them, but it wasn’t a great outing.
The pretty pink birds were about 600 yards off shore on an island. And just after the sun rose, fog moved in.
Still, I got to photograph flamingos in the wild in Central Florida. What a crazy year.
