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Short-Billed Dowitchers

    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, July 8 included the following, based on a report prepared by Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.

    A Brown Booby passed Race Point in Provincetown on Saturday. Other sightings at Race Point included a surprise Atlantic Puffin flyby, a Little Gull, a Black Tern, a Glaucous Gull, 5 Lesser Black-Backed Gulls, 24 Wilson’s Storm-Petrels, 58 Cory’s Shearwaters, 2 Great Shearwaters, 4 Sooty Shearwaters, and 9 Manx Shearwaters. Elsewhere in Provincetown, someone saw a Black Vulture.

    “The less-common Orchard Oriole is smaller than its more famous cousin,” write the people at Mass Audubon. “Instead of bright orange, male Orchard Orioles are highlighted with a deep brownish-red.” These birds are monogamous within each breeding season, according to the Cornell Bird Lab, but they find a new mate each year. “They arrive on breeding grounds in late spring and give breeding displays that include bows, seesawing motions, and begging.” (Photo by Norman Welsh/Friends of Anahuac Refuge, USFWS)

    A Wilson’s Storm-Petrel, a Cory’s Shearwater, and 2 Great Shearwaters were at Great Island in Wellfleet, and at Wellfleet Bay Sanctuary birders reported a Clapper Rail, 4 Whimbrels, 5 Short-Billed Dowitchers, and 2 Orchard Orioles.

    There was at least one continuing Chuck-Will’s-Widow in Eastham. We don’t know what this means for the two who seemed to have worked things out. 

    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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