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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, March 11 included the following, based on a report prepared by Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.

Prepare yourselves: An American Oystercatcher (seen in Bourne) and early Ospreys (in Orleans, Harwich, and Falmouth) were seen up-Cape this week.

That Spotted Towhee at the airport in Provincetown has people’s attention because it’s a western bird, though it is very similar to the Eastern Towhee. In fact, the two used to be considered the same species called the Rufous-Sided Towhee, say the folks at the Cornell Bird Lab. “This is a holdover from when the great ice sheets split the continent down the middle, isolating birds into eastern and western populations that eventually became new species.” Now the two species regularly hybridize where their ranges meet on the central Great Plains. (Photo by Lee Karney/USFWS)

In Provincetown, the long-staying Spotted Towhee continued at the airport, and a Thick-Billed Murre is still drawing birders to nearby MacMillan Pier in the harbor. Birds at Race Point this week included 2 Dovekies, a Common Murre, 16 Iceland Gulls, and 3 Common Ravens.

A Black-Headed Gull continued in Eastham and was most recently reported from First Encounter Beach.

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].

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