(NewsNation) — Flamingos are popping up in unusual places after being blown off course by Hurricane Idalia, which hit Florida last month.
“We’re seeing flamingos all over the place. We’re seeing them in places that we didn’t expect them,” Nate Swick, the American Birding Association’s digital communications manager told WHYY.
According to Swick, it is a “fairly common phenomenon” for birds to be blown out of their natural habitats after a big storm, but not for flamingos.
In recent days, flamingos have been spotted as far north as Ohio and Pennsylvania. The American Birding Association says Hurricane Idalia forced the tropical bird from the Caribbean into Florida, Virginia, Georgia, North and South Carolina and Kentucky.
“We have never seen anything like this,” Jerry Lorenz, state director of Audubon Florida told CNN. “We will get a flamingo or two following storms [but] this is really unprecedented.”
Wild flamingos are rarely aggressive toward humans but the World Animal Foundation says they shouldn’t be approached as they are naturally afraid of people and may attack if they feel threatened.