Cape Cod Bird Sightings — Tuesday, August 20, 2024
Cape Cod Weekly Wildlife Sightings is sponsored by the Bird Watchers General Store in Orleans and Mass Audubon's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. The following sightings were reported between August 14 and August 20, 2024.
A Swallow-tailed Kite was reported at Santuit Pond in Mashpee this week and a Mississippi Kite was reported from Harwich.
Sightings at Race Point in Provincetown included a Pacific Loon, a Long-tailed Jaeger, 4 Parasitic Jaegers, an Arctic Tern, and a Lesser Black-backed Gull.
A hundred miles east of Chatham at George’s Bank a seabird survey identified 4 South Polar Skuas, 2 Leach’s Storm Petrels, and 227 Great Shearwaters.
Some trips to South Monomoy this week turned up 2 Northern Pintail, 13 Blue-winged Teal, 2 Northern Shovelers, a Green-winged Teal, 9 Ruddy Ducks, 2 Pied-billed Grebes, a Common Gallinule, 4 American Coot, 11 American Oystercatchers, 420 Black-bellied Plovers, a Hudsonian Godwit, 2 Whimbrels, 541 Short-billed Dowitchers, 19 Lesser Yellowlegs, 1 Stilt Sandpiper, 20 White-rumped Sandpipers, 1950 Semipalmated Sandpipers, 3 Lesser Black-backed Gulls, 100 Roseate Terns, 24 Snowy Egrets, and 2 Northern Harriers.
A survey of the Herring River in Wellfleet tallied 3 Clapper Rails, 6 Virginia Rails, a Sora, 2 Common Ravens, and 6 Marsh Wrens.
Birds at Pogorelc Sanctuary in Barnstable included 4 Wood Ducks, 2 Blue-winged Teal, 2 Little Blue Herons, 4 Yellow-crowned Night Herons, 6 Black-crowned Night Herons, 8 Green Herons, a Willow Flycatcher, and a Northern Waterthrush.
Other sightings around the Cape included a Blue Grosbeak at Crane WMA in Falmouth; a Blue-winged Warbler in Mashpee; a Seaside Sparrow in West Barnstable; a Dickcissel in Chatham; a Bald Eagle, 20 Whimbrels and a Wilson’s Snipe at Indian Neck in Wellfleet; and an American Bittern at High Head in Truro.
If you have questions about these sightings, or want to report a sighting, call the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary at 508-349-2615 or send e-mail to [email protected].