BIRD SIGHTINGS

The seabird show has started to dwindle, but there are still some good sightings and numbers. A two-hour sea watch from Race Point in Provincetown on June 27 produced the following: three Cory’s shearwaters, 250 greater shearwaters, 25 sooty shearwaters, 200 Wilson’s storm-petrels, 75 Northern gannets, 1 killdeer, 75 laughing gulls, 150 herring gulls, four lesser black-backed gulls, 40 least terns, 200 common terns, two Arctic terns, 12 parasitic jaegers, and four long-tailed jaegers. We have been spoiled with number and variety of species, but these numbers are still very impressive.

Migrant shorebirds are starting to make their way back south. It may not be possible to decipher which individuals are early migrants and which ones perhaps never left the Cape. At the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, a dozen or so greater yellowlegs have started popping up. Another shorebird of note at the sanctuary this week was a whimbrel, present on Thursday morning. This is very early for a migrant whimbrel, but this individual might have been staying on the sanctuary or Lieutenant Island and enjoying the smorgasbord of fiddler crabs since spring. Fiddlers are a favorite food and so Lieutenant Island and the sanctuary can be some of the best places in the state to see whimbrel in summer and fall. A white-rumped sandpiper and a short-billed dowitcher were also noted this week at nearby Indian Neck in Wellfleet.

Also present at the sanctuary this week was a Leach’s storm-petrel passing by very close to shore. A survey of breeding birds at the sanctuary produced a surprising number of orchard orioles. Six pairs were found, most with two fledglings. This is a large increase from one pair four years ago and three pairs last year. While adult male Baltimore orioles are bright orange, have loud whistled songs, and make deep pendulous nests over water, a path, or a field; orchard oriole adult males are smaller, burnt chestnut in color, sing a song similar to a finch, and build a shallower nest usually in thick pine needles. Be sure to check any loud baby bird sounds you hear, you may have an orchard oriole family in your yard. But be quick, because orchard orioles leave by mid-August.

A few hours birding on South Beach in Chatham on June 27 had the following highlights: eight white-winged scoters, one red-necked grebe, four snowy egrets, one Northern harrier, 380 black-bellied plovers, six semipalmated plovers, 12 piping plovers, eight American oystercatchers, one greater yellowlegs, 70 willets, 14 ruddy turnstones, 40 red knots, 25 sanderlings, 80 semipalmated sandpipers, two least sandpipers, seven white-rumped sandpipers, six dunlin, and 40 short-billed dowitchers.

For more information about bird sightings or to report bird sightings, call the Massachusetts Audubon Society at 781-259-8805 or go to www.massaudubon.org.