This Week’s Bird Sightings

Confirmed bird sightings on the Outer Cape in the week preceding the Independent’s deadline on Tuesday, Feb. 18 included the following, based on a report prepared by Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.

In Provincetown, the Spotted Towhee. Still there. Also, a Sandhill Crane was photographed in the West End marsh, and a Thick-Billed Murre has been drawing birders to nearby MacMillan Pier in Provincetown Harbor.

Birds at Race Point in Provincetown this week included at least 3 Pacific Loons, 4 Northern Pintails, 112 Razorbills, 2 Dovekies, 3 Common Murres, 42 Iceland Gulls, a Lesser Black-Backed Gull, 3 Black-Legged Kittiwakes, 2 Red-Necked Grebes, a Great Cormorant, 17 Horned Larks, and 45 Snow Buntings.

Barrow’s Goldeneye is mostly a bird of wild northwestern landscapes, according to the people at the Cornell Bird Lab. It’s “a northwestern duck with an eastern name,” say the folks at Eastside Audubon in Redmond, Wash. They gather in a small breeding area in Iceland, where the duck was first seen by Europeans, but 90 percent of the world’s population of these birds live and breed west of the Rocky Mountains. (Photo by Colin Canterbury/USFWS)

There was a Barrow’s Goldeneye in Wellfleet Harbor.

The Truro birders appear to have flown to Florida. Those from Eastham will report in when they’re back from Costa Rica.

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 an email to [email protected].