Beachgoers spot a flamingo on a Cape Cod beach

DENNIS, Mass. (WLNE) — While residents were enjoying their Sunday afternoon trip to the beach on Cape Cod, a flamingo was suddenly spotted in the distance.

Images were circulating on social media before Science Coordinator for Mass Audubon in Cape Cod Mark Faherty saw them, he shared with ABC6.

“A birder I met at Chapin Beach the next day flatly called it a hoax. But the naysayers were all wrong – additional corroborating photos and video emerged Tuesday, taken by a woman named Sam Roth a little earlier on Sunday afternoon, exonerating the Giffords,” he shared.

Faherty continued that the flamingo was definitely real after birders had shared photos of a flamingo in Long Island that had disappeared by Sunday morning.

“This was almost certainly that same flamingo – it headed to the Cape like so many New Yorkers in summer,” he said.

Faherty said there’s been instances where flamingos have escaped zoos but are typical to Florida, usually flying North when they’re faced with captivity or hurricanes — a hurricane this September dispersed some, and the birds were spotted in strange new places, Faherty said.

Where the bird is now, said Flaherty, he’s unsure where it could be at this time.

“It could be in Canada by now for all we know,” he said.

Video and photo courtesy of Sam Roth.