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bird watchers

    RARA AVIS

    This Week’s Bird Sightings

    By

    Confirmed bird sightings on the Outer Cape in the week preceding the Independent’s deadline on Tuesday, Sept. 12 included the following, based on a report prepared by Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.

    Birds reported from boats on Stellwagen Bank included a Long-Tailed Jaeger, a Pomarine Jaeger, 2 Parasitic Jaegers, 140 Roseate Terns, 2 Leach’s Storm-Petrels, 800 Cory’s Shearwaters, 1,200 Great Shearwaters, 200 Sooty Shearwaters, and 500 Manx Shearwaters.

    Sightings at Race Point in Provincetown included a Sabine’s Gull, 3 American Golden-Plovers, 4 Whimbrels, 7 Parasitic Jaegers, 35 Black-Legged Kittiwakes, 5 Lesser Black-Backed Gulls, 300 Roseate Terns, 200 Common Terns, 60 Great Shearwaters, 35 Sooty Shearwaters, and 9 Manx Shearwaters.

    The Cape Cod National Seashore is a stopover area for migrating Whimbrels. These birds have lost approximately half their population in the last 50 years, according to the Cape Cod National Seashore website. “They are on a trajectory to lose another 50 percent of their remaining population in the next 50 years if conditions stay the same,” the Park Service reports. “As arctic breeders, climate change impacts and resource extractions have a significant impact on Whimbrels.” Their dramatic population decline puts them at a tipping point where urgent action is needed to keep them from becoming endangered, according to the U.S. Committee of the North American Bird Conservation Initiative. They are already protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. (Photo by Peter Pearsall/USFWS)

    There was a Red-Necked Phalarope at Head of the Meadow in Truro, and a Philadelphia Vireo elsewhere in Truro.

    Birds reported from Wellfleet Bay this week included 13 Whimbrels, 5 Pectoral Sandpipers, 2 Yellow-Crowned and 2 Black-Crowned Night-Herons, a Common Nighthawk, an Olive-Sided Flycatcher, 3 Yellow-Bellied Flycatchers, and a Philadelphia Vireo.

    A Long-Tailed Jaeger and a Western Sandpiper were seen in Wellfleet Harbor, and a Lincoln’s Sparrow was spotted elsewhere in Wellfleet.

    The birdwatchers of Eastham were sighted at the Beer & Wine Garden at Windmill Weekend.

    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].

    RARA AVIS

    This Week’s Bird Sightings

    By

    Confirmed bird sightings on the Outer Cape in the week preceding the Independent’s deadline on Tuesday, Jan. 24 included the following, based on a report prepared by Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.

    Sightings at Race Point in Provincetown included 2 Pacific Loons, 18 Common Murres, 900 Razorbills, 22 Iceland Gulls, and a Lapland Longspur. 

    Also, an Evening Grosbeak was seen in Provincetown this week.

    You won’t see this because all this happens in the arctic, according to the people at the Cornell Bird Lab, but, at mating time, the male Lapland Longspur performs a flight song display, flying up some 20 meters and singing as he glides to the ground. This is his way of attracting a female’s attention. If he gets it, the male then performs what is called a “Grass Display,” in which he gathers grasses and moss to bring to the female. If all goes well, they build a tightly woven cup-shaped nest of grasses in a hollow on the ground, line it with fur from hare, lemming, or dog, and hatch a few chicks like these. (Photo by Lisa Hupp/USFWS)

    There was a White-Crowned Sparrow and a Eurasian Green-Winged Teal in North Truro.

    Three American Bitterns were seen at Fort Hill in Eastham.

    Wellfleet is apparently mostly in Tucson at the moment.

    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].

    RARA AVIS

    This Week’s Bird Sightings

    By

    A Tricolored Heron visited Coast Guard Beach this week. (Photo Keenan Adams/USFWS)

    Confirmed bird sightings on the Outer Cape in the week preceding the Independent’s deadline on Tuesday, April 14, included the following, based on a report prepared by Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.

    An Indigo Bunting was seen in Provincetown this week.

    Birds at Race Point in Provincetown included a Pacific Loon, 261 Common Murres, 470 Razorbills, 9 Laughing Gulls, 7 Iceland Gulls, a Lesser Black-backed Gull, 280 Red-throated Loons, 32 Common Loons, 1,775 Northern Gannets, and a Broad-winged Hawk. And we know they’re not birds, but this: a mother and calf North Atlantic Right Whale was confirmed off the Race as well.

    A Swallow-tailed Kite and a Sandhill Crane were seen in North Truro this week. In other Truro news this week: someone saw a Baltimore Oriole.

    A Brown Pelican was filmed off Lecount Hollow in Wellfleet; possibly the same bird was later seen on Nantucket.

    A Tricolored Heron continued at Coast Guard Beach in Eastham this week.

    An American Bittern, 2 Northern Bobwhites, a Wilson’s Snipe, an American Kestrel, a Winter Wren, a Seaside Sparrow, a Nelson’s Sparrow, 2 Marsh Wrens, and 4 Eastern Meadowlarks were among the sightings at Fort Hill in Eastham this week.

     

    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].

     

    THE YEAR-ROUNDER

    Big Deal in Bird World

    In winter MacMillan Wharf becomes a mecca

    By

    I have written about the centrality of MacMillan Wharf to Provincetown. I would get no argument in the summer, certainly, or even the shoulder seasons. Ferries first disgorge people, who stream down the wharf into town with great expectations, then take on the exhausted, partied-out vacationers for the return trip to Boston. The whale watch boats are coming and going with screaming passengers and droning naturalists.

    These boats seem to inhale and exhale people throughout the day. The scene includes the Hindu, the Bay Lady, the charter sport fishing boats, and a stream of strollers and sightseers. The pounding of footsteps in August is like the low rumble of thunder. There is a cacophony of languages from around the world — a modern-day Babel. And don’t forget the kids diving into the water. Pandemonium.

    Bird watcher at MacMillan Wharf
    Provincetown’s MacMillan Wharf is a favorite winter destination for birdwatchers. (Photo Nancy Bloom)

    Winter activity on the wharf is less known. Less known, that is, unless you belong to a small but devoted group of nerds who celebrate birds. I am one of them. MacMillan Wharf is regularly visited on these short bleak winter days, in good weather and in bad, and most sightings are electronically communicated around the world (principally by something called eBird). So, if a rarity is sighted, as it recently was, the wharf turns into a mecca, with enthusiasts (sorry I called you “nerds”) coming from Boston, Connecticut, and beyond.

    Birders show up for a rare bird on the wharf the way the gulls on the beach come out of nowhere when you appear with a bag of popcorn. And there is a genuine and gratifying sharing of sightings between complete strangers. (“Have you seen it? It’s over there by the orange buoy!”)

    The recent rarity, beginning in December, was a black guillemot, which, in winter, is white.  There were actually two guillemots, one whiter than the other — the extremely white bird is a member of an Arctic subspecies and is, I believe, a first record for the state. This was a big deal in Bird World.

    Yes, we also have the ubiquitous loafing gulls (although even among them you can spot a rarity, like the lesser black-backed gull, a mainly European species that I saw last week) and scrambling pigeons (which are actually quite beautiful up close, if regarded without prejudice). But the long winter months also bring varieties of sea ducks and geese with wonderful names like goldeneye, long-tailed, bufflehead, eider, merganser, harlequin, and brant, loons, grebes, and a handful of alcid species (sometimes referred to as the “penguins of the Northern Hemisphere”) — murres, dovekies, razorbills, and guillemots.

    All these birds come from up north. They think this place is Miami! And they literally are at your feet. MacMillan Wharf is, after all, a sizable artificial extension of land out into the harbor, and it is elevated. You are surrounded by a watery world, and it is full of water birds.

    I visit the wharf almost every day to spend time with the birds. In this I am a throwback to the age-old custom of the fishermen, whether retired or on a rare day off, who would religiously come down to the wharf to see “what was up,” what the weather and seas were like, and who was catching what. Veteran whale watch workers do the same in their season.

    Standing at the end of the wharf, under pewter skies, Long Point out beyond and the town behind me, under the gaze of the giant portraits of Portuguese women (“They Also Faced the Sea”) out on Fisherman’s Wharf, I survey the water with binoculars and spotting scope. I scan the breakwater and the few floats. I investigate the handful of docked fishing boats, and the relatively sheltered waters between the wharves and between the slips. The new wave attenuator is already attracting birds.

    There is not much human activity most days. It is quiet, save for the emblematic cry of the gulls.  A few lobster traps are piled up. At my feet is the detritus of unloaded fishing boats, the occasional twist of line, copious amounts of gull poop, and a few empty nip bottles. The cold air has that essence of fish, seaweed, salt, cold, and wet wood.

    Wildlife is where you find it. And here, in the middle of town, where land meets sea, is a great place to experience the world. May it ever be so.

     

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