Cape Cod Bird Sightings — Tuesday, August 22, 2023

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 16 and August 22, 2023.

The state’s first ever Lesser Sand-Plover continued at South Cape Beach in Mashpee and the American Avocet continued at Woodneck Beach in Falmouth this week.

A Swallow-tailed Kite was photographed in Cotuit on the 16th, marking the last of several sightings in that general area over the course of a week.

A Royal Tern and 2 Seaside Sparrows were seen in Nauset Marsh in Eastham this week.

Reports from multiple surveys of remote parts of Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge in Chatham this week included 3 Blue-winged Teal, 18 Northern Shovelers, 33 Gadwall, 81 American Black Ducks, 8 Northern Pintails, 23 Green-winged Teal, 3 Pied-billed Grebes, a Common Gallinule, an American Golden-Plover, 250 Black-bellied Plovers, 800 Semipalmated Plovers, 32 Piping Plovers, 3 Whimbrel, 9 Hudsonian Godwits, 200 Ruddy Turnstones, 150 Red Knots, 400 Sanderlings, 150 Least Sandpipers, 6 White-rumped Sandpipers, 4000 Semipalmated Sandpipers, 400 Short-billed Dowitchers, 10 Lesser Black-backed Gulls, a Black Tern, 1200 Roseate Terns, 3000 Common Terns, 2 Arctic Terns, 3500 Double-crested Cormorants, 210 Snowy Egrets, 5 Yellow-crowned Night-Herons, and a Peregrine Falcon.

Other sightings around the Cape included a Bufflehead in Falmouth, a Little Blue Heron at South Cape Beach in Mashpee, a Dickcissel and a Hooded Merganser in Barnstable, a Black-headed Gull at Forest Beach in Chatham, a Seaside Sparrow at Wellfleet Bay sanctuary, and a Blackburnian Warbler 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].