Bye-Bye Mockingbird? Florida Mulls Flamingo as New State Bird

A local lawmaker is looking to kill the mockingbird as Florida’s official state bird and replace it with the flamingo.

Earlier this month, the Florida House of Representatives held the first reading of HB 11, which calls for the flamingo to replace the mockingbird as the state bird and the scrub jay to become the state’s official songbird. Jim Mooney, the Florida House representative for all of Monroe and parts of Miami-Dade counties, filed HB 11 in September after sponsoring pro-flamingo legislation for four years, according to the Washington Post.

“It’s unbelievable how this has taken on a life of its own,” Mooney told the paper. “I’m seeing flamingos everywhere I go. Across the state, everywhere I turn around, it’s a flamingo here and a flamingo there. People are sending me texts and letters about it. Everybody is on board for the flamingo.”

Previous attempts to crown the flamingo as the official state bird ran afoul of allegations that the flamboyant fliers are actually foreigners to Florida, according to the Washington Post. But flamingo fans are in a more buoyant mood this time around, armed with a December 2025 University of Central Florida study declaring flamingos are indigenous to the Sunshine State. And, according to Florida International University (FIU) biology researcher Jerome Lorenz, flamingo populations are growing throughout the state, including in the vast Florida Everglades.

In an opinion piece published in the New Times last year, Lorenz noted the 19th-century demise of the Florida flamingo, thanks to the fashion trend of decorating hats with bird feathers. According to Lorenz, the Florida flamingo essentially disappeared for 100 years and began to rebound in 2023 after Hurricane Idalia blew a flamboyance (yes, that is what scientists call a group of the pink wading birds) of about 300 to 400 off course and deposited them everywhere from Florida to Wisconsin.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Mooney likens the flamingo fight to a deal Florida lawmakers struck in 2022 for the state to honor the strawberry shortcake as the official state dessert — leaving a sour taste in the mouths of Mooney’s Key lime pie diehards in the Florida Keys. To make sure everyone got a trophy, Ron DeSantis signed a bill to make strawberry shortcake the official dessert of Florida, leaving Key lime pie’s title as state pie intact.

“There’s room for both, just like there’s room for both the flamingo and the scrub jay,” Mooney told Washington Post. “We seldom have bills that make you feel good. This bill does, and it also has some real intrinsic value. It shows that our restoration projects are bearing fruit, and that flamingos are here to stay.”