Read time: 5 min.

Looking for wildlife is one of my favorite things to do when I’m up at the property. I’ve seen deer, grouse, coyotes, black bears, sandhill cranes, and more over the past thirty-two years! I’m happy to say that my last trip up wasn’t a disappointment, thanks to a fox, turkeys, and some unexpected visitors.

“The property” is what my family calls our eighty-ish-acre tract of land up in Michigan. Thanks to my Uncle Joe, my Grandpa, and my Aunt Connie, we’ve been going up there to hunt, camp, and enjoy each others’ company for more than half a century! Although animals are more often heard than seen, that didn’t prove the case over the Fourth of July weekend.

My brother and I were first confronted by signs of unexpected migration patterns just after we turned into the lane that leads back to our cabins. I always assumed that flamingos were most comfortable dwelling in the brackish waters of the Caribbean, but this one seemed pretty pleased with itself among the hardwoods of northern Michigan.

I took a stroll through the forest after we unpacked the car. I had to pee, so I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going and eventually found myself pretty deep in the woods. Glancing up, I found this inquisitive fellow leaning it to get a better look at me. “Hmmmmm?” he seemed to say.

I’d never flown my drone at the property, so I brought it on the trip. I sent it up over the site of an old farm near the corner of our land once I made it back to our cabins and noticed something unusually pink: I hiked through the pines and Sumac and found a third bird that must have gotten separated from its friends. It was way out in no-man’s land, and I didn’t see any others that far out during the rest of our stay.

Other sightings were too close for comfort: it was evident that the flamingos had lost their natural fear of humans. In some cases, they even waltzed right up to the boundary of acceptable behavior! This one seemed pretty brazen when I found it patrolling the grounds around our bunkhouse. I fed it a handful of prawns to try and shoo it away, but that probably didn’t help matters since it was still there when we left two days later.

It was hot when we went up to the property. Even in the shade of the forest, the temperature topped ninety degrees! It quickly became apparent that flamingoes don’t really care what kinds of trees they rest under. Forget the mangrove swamps and tidal flats- I spied this one resting in a grove of row-planted pines.

I think we all know that flamingoes typically feed by using their feet to stir up mud. They then suck the water through their bills and filter out shrimp, seeds, algae, and mollusks to eat. I’ve never seen any of those things at the property, but one I found amidst some ferns seemed plenty well-fed regardless. All of them did!

We only spent two nights at the property, which wasn’t enough time to scour every acre of the place for Central-American wading birds. Despite that, I found eleven by the time we got ready to pack up camp, which was quite the flamboyance! We were almost to 8 Mile Road on our way out Monday morning when John and I heard a nasally, ear-splitting honk. I assumed it was something that had fallen off my twelve-year-old car, so I kept on driving until we saw the real culprit, a twelfth flamingo not thirty feet east of our front gate.

It was nice to put a face to a honk! Although my brother and I had a great time at the property, the trip home was disappointing, as it always is, since neither of us saw any more flamingos on the five-and-a-half-hour journey. It looks like I’ll be going back up in October, though, and I’ll be excited to see if our visitors turn into regulars. Here’s hoping the bears don’t get them- I’ve heard that there might be some tax breaks if we establish a wildlife sanctuary.