Maybe they just like cheese

[billhammond]

Excerpt from AP:

PORT WASHINGTON, Wis. — Five flamingos that showed up in Wisconsin to wade along a Lake Michigan beach attracted a big crowd of onlookers eager to see the unusual visitors venturing far from their usual tropical setting.

The American flamingos spotted Friday in Port Washington, about 25 miles north of Milwaukee, marked the first sighting of the species in Wisconsin state history, said Mark Korducki, a member of the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

The birds stood quietly 25 feet off Lake Michigan's western shoreline as waves lapped against their thin legs. Three were adults, identifiable by their pink plumage, and two were juveniles clad in gray.

Jim Edelhuber of Waukesha was among a crowd of about 75 bird enthusiasts drawn to the city's South Beach after word spread on social media about the flamingos' appearance there.

''This is huge. This is unbelievable," said Edelhuber, an avid bird watcher and photographer.

The sighting was unexpected but not a total shock because of recent reports of flamingos in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Pennsylvania, said Ryan Brady, conservation biologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

Wildlife biologists hypothesized that the flamingos were pushed north in late August by the strong winds of Hurricane Idalia, the Journal Sentinel reported.

[Village Idiot]

Sept 23, 2023 15:54:57 GMT -5 billhammond said:

Wildlife biologists hypothesized that the flamingos were pushed north in late August by the strong winds of Hurricane Idalia, the Journal Sentinel reported.

I'll go with Bill's idea. Maybe they just like cheese.

[RickW]

Tourist board stuck them there. They’re on springs so they move in the wind.

[drlj]

You can tell by the look on their faces that they are wondering just what the hell went wrong with their flight.

[millring]

...or beer.

[AlanC]

Back in '05, during the lull as the eye of Katrina passed over us, the neighbors gathered in the street to check on each other. There was a seagull in our street oddly exhibiting their normal behavior of following the ebb and flow of the waves going up and and then back down the beach. In this case the occasional wind gust was blowing a puddle on the road and he was running ahead of the edge of water as it went one way and then turning around and chasing it back to the main puddle as the water receded when the gust settled down. In this case he was running to and fro for a few feet instead of the usual 20 or 30. As the wind changes direction after the eye, he was probably blown right back home in case you were worried about him.