Behind the great unplanned flamingo migration

Five flamingos were spotted at a beach in Wisconsin last week, marking the state’s first recorded sighting of the species in history.

And Wisconsin’s not alone. A flamingo was also recently spotted in Kentucky for the first time, plus more than 150 unique flamingo sightings have been reported in recent weeks across Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Tennessee, and Virginia.

🌀🦩 Driving the sightings… The timing of these reports roughly matches up to Hurricane Idalia, which made landfall in the southeastern US in late August/early September after traveling through the Caribbean and Mexico’s Yucatán region – where colonies of flamingos usually live.

• Birds have previously been documented in the calm center of hurricanes, USA Today reports.
• They also try to fly around the storm and get diverted, or are already in the air and get caught up in the outer bands, then ride the bands until they reach land or drop into the ocean.

Another side effect from hurricanes = high OJ prices. Orange juice futures hit a record high of $3.69/pound on Tuesday morning, after hurricanes and bad weather in Florida led to the state’s lowest orange crop yield in nearly 80 years.