Purple sandpipers were spotted during this year’s Mid-Cape Christmas Bird Count.
(Mark Wilson/Globe Staff/File)
Recent bird sightings on Cape Cod (as of Dec. 30) as reported to the Mass. Audubon Society. Among the highlights from the Mid-Cape Christmas Bird Count were 2 northern shovelers, a black-headed gull, 2 Iceland gulls, 4 dovekies, ruddy turnstones, purple sandpipers, a black-bellied plover, a red-shouldered hawk, a short-eared owl, a northern saw-whet owl, a northern bobwhite, a yellow-bellied sapsucker, an amazing 28,000 American robins entering a roost in Barnstable at dusk, a fox sparrow, and 3 rusty blackbirds.
A tremendous flight of 11,000 alcids was noted from Race Point in Provincetown that included 15 dovekies, a thick-billed murre, 800 razorbills, a black guillemot, and over 10,000 unidentified alcids. Among the other seabirds seen were 450 red-breasted mergansers, 980 northern gannets, 500 herring gulls, 840 black-legged kittiwakes, and 5 Iceland gulls.
Some impressive alcids were also reported on the Truro Christmas Bird Count held on Tuesday, including 3 Atlantic puffins, 25 common murres, 5 thick-billed murres, 6 dovekies, 2 black guillemots, and 5,000 razorbills. Other highlights from this challengingly windy count were about 6,000 northern gannets, 7 Iceland gulls, a peregrine falcon, a yellow-bellied sapsucker, a winter wren, and an eastern towhee.
A very late greater shearwater was seen off of Chatham Light on Christmas Day. Other Chatham birds this week were a king eider also at Chatham Light, and a cackling goose reported among a flock of Canada geese at Goose Pond in Chatham. Two redheads were at Sider’s Pond in Falmouth the day after Christmas..
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. 
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