Hamptons Flamingo – The New York Times

For the last few summers in East Hampton, N.Y., many people have gotten up early in hopes of glimpsing Jay-Z on one of his early morning walks amid the shingled mansions of moguls such as David Zaslav, David Geffen and Ron Perelman.

But this season, the world’s most successful rapper has seemingly been upstaged by a new star in town: a wild American flamingo that has drawn hundreds of spectators in recent weeks.

It apparently made its way to this moneyed enclave of celebrities, plutocrats and tourists last month, taking up residence in Georgica Pond, a brackish coastal pond that lies between East Hampton and Wainscott. First to spot the wayward bird was Cathy Blinken, an Amazon Web Services senior marketing manager who spends time on the pond with her husband, David Blinken, a first cousin to Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken.

Ms. Blinken promptly called The East Hampton Star, which sent a reporter and photographer to break the story of the creature’s arrival. In the coming days, those who visited Georgica Pond to see the vagrant flamingo for themselves ended up disappointed. The bird had flown.

Days later, a flamingo with identical plumage was seen sunning itself roughly 200 miles away, on the shores of Cape Cod Bay in Massachusetts. It seemed that the bird might be one of those highfliers who, after surveying various summer outposts of the Northeast, had determined that Cape Cod was preferable to the scenic splendor of the scene-obsessed Hamptons.

But on June 9, Pietro Cicognani, an East Hampton architect, spotted the bird and made a call to The Star, which quickly published a follow-up to its scoop.

Jim Colligan, an avid birder who used to serve as a councilman on nearby Shelter Island, helped spread the news of the flamingo’s return. On Tuesday he found himself riding in the car of another area resident, Steven Spielberg, to catch a glimpse of the village’s principal attraction.

As Mr. Spielberg drove, Mr. Colligan directed him to a sandy pathway surrounded by partridgeberry vines and onto an inlet near the end of West End Road, not far from the former home of Kelly Klein, the ex-wife of Calvin Klein. From there, it was easy to spot the flamingo in the pond. This was less because of its distinctive plumage and more because of its stilt-like legs, which enabled it to walk the shallows with the gait of a Louboutin-clad supermodel.

The flamingo went into a routine that looked like a jig — it bent its right leg, then its left, then its right…