'It's a manatee!': Watch Florida woman discover unlikely visitor in backyard after Idalia
Hurricane Idalia didn't just bring flooding and power outages to Florida's west coast, it also brought unexpected visitors.
A video by Kathleen Eisenhauer pans over flooded docks before pausing at the recognizable gray blob in the water.
"It's a manatee! He's eating the grass," she said. "Unbelievable. Unbelievable."
NBC 2 reported that the video was taken in Port Charlotte, which Hurricane Idalia mostly missed, but still saw some flooding that closed bridges.
In the background of the video, she says they were out trying to save their boats when they spotted the manatee.
"He loves it. He's having like a little extra food," she said. In fact, manatees are called sea cows because they eat sea grass.
At the end of the video, he slowly makes his way off the submerged lawn and into the main waterway.
Other unexpected visitors from Hurricane Idalia
Less than a year after Hurricane Ian brought devastating damage to the area, Southwest Florida largely let out a sigh of relief that Idalia moved further up the coast.
The manatee wasn't the only unlikely visitor in the area from Idalia. A resident on Sanibel Island spotted wild flamingos near the Sanibel Causeway.
Other wild flamingos were spotted further up the coast all the way to Clearwater, and experts are convinced they were blown off course during the storm and landed here.
According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, 95% of sightings are within the Everglades, Biscayne Bay and the Florida Keys.
Contributing: Mark H. Bickel, Chad Gillis, Fort-Myers News Press; Phil Fernandez, Naples Daily News
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Manatee uses lawn flooded by Hurricane Idalia as a buffet: Video
