A Spring Hope man visiting Topsail Beach Sound on Thursday afternoon couldn’t figure out what was going on in the water.

It prompted Peyton Stamper to fly his drone over the area to figure out what was going on. He was excited to see a herd of manatees.

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“One of my nephews took off in his kayak, which you can see in the video, and was trying to find them. [He] went right past them,” Stamper said. “When I got over, I was shocked to see they were manatees.

“I recognized the silhouette.”

Stamper said he’s visited Topsail Beach for 31 years with his wife and he has made hundreds of dolphin videos using his drone.

“I’ve never seen a manatee before,” Stamper said. “I do understand they’re migratory. They’ll come north, but it’s the first time I’ve seen them in Topsail Sound.”

Stamper advised fellow boaters to be careful and take precautions with the manatees present.

“You can see in the video one of them obviously has prop marks on his back, where he had an encounter with a boat,” Stamper said. “I understand from just past reading and stuff down in Florida, that’s kind of common.”

Stamper is a native of Raleigh. He said his family was just as excited.

“We [have] a lot of kids,” Stamper said. “First, we had to first explain what a manatee was.”

The nonprofit Save the Mantee Club states manatees are migratory species. In the U.S., they are concentrated in Florida in the winter. In summer months, they can be found as far west as Texas and as far north as Massachusetts, but summer sightings in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina are more common.

Earlier this month, Paws & Claws Animal Hospital in Wilmington posted about a herd of manatees spotted in the intracoastal waterways between Hampstead and Wrightsville Beach.

"They have been spotted feeding by docks and banks where waterway traffic tends to be heavier," the hospital wrote. "Manatees are very difficult to spot above water, so please exercise caution when enjoying your time on the water."

The hospital said manatees are a federally protected animal, discouraging people from interacting with them.

People in North Carolina can report manatee sightings on the University of North Carolina-Wilmington's website.