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This Week’s Bird Sightings

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Confirmed bird sightings on the Outer Cape in the week preceding the Independent’s deadline on Tuesday, April 29 included the following, based on a report prepared by Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.

Birds at Race Point in Provincetown this week included a Pacific Loon, 50 unidentified phalaropes, a Parasitic Jaeger, 2 Lesser Black-Backed Gulls, 5 Iceland Gulls, 2 Common Terns, 2 American Kestrels, a Merlin, and 17 Broad-Winged Hawks. Elsewhere in town, someone saw a Black Vulture.

A Red Crossbill was seen in North Truro.

“Orchard Orioles (Icterus spurius) look like Baltimores dipped in mahogany wood stain, which shrank them when it dried,” according to Jim Pauff at Travis Audubon in south-central Texas. They are North America’s smallest blackbird, and like other orioles they winter in the tropics or neotropics. Pauff has something good here: “Orchard Orioles are studied in countries like Panama because they fertilize a large forest tree by sipping nectar from its flowers. Only Orchard Orioles do this; other wintering orioles peck through the base of the blooms to steal nectar. The flower has some mahogany color and scientists wonder if that causes the difference in behavior.” (Photo by Paul Moffett/Travis Audubon)

There was a Barrow’s Goldeneye at Wellfleet Harbor.

A Pacific Loon on Great Pond in Eastham was among this week’s rarities. An American Golden-Plover was at Nauset Beach. Elsewhere in town, there was a sighting of an Orchard Oriole.

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].

Cape Custom does closets.

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