Cape Cod Bird Sightings — Tuesday, October 31, 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 October 25 and October 31, 2023.

An Ash-throated Flycatcher was found at High Head in North Truro this weekend, and a Yellow-headed Blackbird and a Lark Sparrow were found nearby at the Old North Cemetery in Truro.

Other Lark Sparrows were found at Cape Cod Organic Farm in Barnstable and Harwich community gardens.

The Rufous Hummingbird found October 17 at a community garden in Orleans has continued sporadically as recently as Monday, though mainly at pineapple sage flowers at a nearby house.

A survey of the Herring River marshes in Wellfleet this week found 6 Clapper Rails, 4 Virginia Rails, 2 Sora, a late Green Heron, 3 Great Horned Owls, and 9 Marsh Wrens.

Birds noted at Race Point in Provincetown included 16 Green-winged Teal, a Red-necked Grebe, 11 Parasitic Jaeger, 14 Razorbills, 4 Dovekies, a Comon Murre, 35 Bonaparte’s Gulls, 20 Red-throated Loons, 18 Common Loons, 2 Cory’s Shearwaters, 3 Great Shearwaters, a Sooty Shearwater, 19 Manx Shearwaters, and 1100 Northern Gannets.

Sightings from remote parts of Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge this week included a Tufted Duck, 7 Northern Shovelers, 29 Northern Pintail, 75 American Wigeon, 460 Ruddy Ducks, an American Golden-Plover, 3 Hudsonian Godwits, an American Bittern, a Barn Owl, a Lapland Longspur, 5 Snow Buntings, a Nelson’s Sparrow, 3 Saltmarsh Sparrows, and a late Northern Waterthrush.

Other sightings around the Cape included a late Spotted Sandpiper in Falmouth, a Common Nighthawk in Barnstable, 2 Snowy Egrets at Fort Hill in Eastham, and Whimbrels in Orleans (2), Wellfleet, and Yarmouth.

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].