Recent bird sightings on Cape Cod (as of May 5) as reported to the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Most of our expected spring migrants arrived literally overnight including orioles, tanagers, grosbeaks, catbirds, flycatchers, hummingbirds, vireos, swallows, and warblers.
Reported from the Beech Forest in Provincetown were a wood duck, wild turkeys, blue-headed vireos, hermit thrush, ruby-crowned kinglets, Northern parula, yellow-rumped warbler, palm warbler, black and white warbler, 30 white-throated sparrows, and Baltimore orioles.
In Truro, at Head of the Meadow an adult Pacific loon was seen flying by and a lesser black-backed gull was present. An orange-crowned warbler, a vesper sparrow, and a white-crowned sparrow were at High Head.
The Pilgrim Heights Hawk Watch in Truro had some big tallies. Migrant hawks tallied included 2 black vultures, 110 turkey vultures, 30 osprey, 7 bald eagles, 353 sharp-shinned hawks, 12 Cooper’s hawks, a red-shouldered hawk, 86 broad-winged hawks, 16 red-tailed hawks, 32 American kestrels, 38 merlins, and 9 peregrines. Non-hawks noted included 5 Iceland gulls, 18 common loons, 50 barn swallows, 6 purple martins, 2 American bitterns, 2 green herons, 3 great egrets, 1,100 red-breasted mergansers, 3 Eastern kingbirds, and an indigo bunting.
A whale-watching trip to Stellwagen Bank reported a sooty shearwater, plus 11 common loons, 6 red-throated loons, 16 Northern gannets, 3,000 herring gulls, 44 Bonaparte’s gulls, 28 laughing gulls, 9 common terns, and 22 razorbills.
Observed on Ocean View drive in Wellfleet were 4 merlins, 5 American kestrels, 5 sharp-shinned hawks, a wild turkey, a prairie warbler, and a brown thrasher, plus a calling whip-poor-will by White Crest Beach.
A probable king rail was calling again off Lothrop Road in Harwich, and other sightings included an adult bald eagle by Swan Pond in Dennisport, least terns and common terns reported from Dowses Beach in Osterville and Sampson’s Island in Cotuit, a white-crowned sparrow and a wild turkey in Orleans, a whip-poor-will in Wellfleet, a flock of 7 migrating great blue herons in Cotuit, a Caspian tern in Wareham, a Northern waterthrush in Sandwich, 25 purple martins plus the continuing snow goose in Mashpee, and a willet, 16 ruddy turnstones, and 6 purple sandpipers at Dowses Beach in Osterville.
For more information about sightings or to report sightings, call the Massachusetts Audubon Society at 781-259-8805 or go to www.massaudubon.org. ![]()



