Weekly Bird Report

The surprising things that hummingbirds eat

Let's talk about that flood of spring overshoot migrants

The first hummingbird was reported on the Cape, as expected for mid-April, but this eagerly anticipated annual event was overshadowed by spring overshoot fever — southerly winds brought, well, a windfall of rare birds to the Cape and Islands.

Keep an eye and ear out for the uncommon birds of April

April isn’t my favorite month in the birding calendar, especially when its weather barely outperforms bleakest March, but it has its charms – the first hummingbirds and seabird migration among them.

Leave the leaves?

This week on The Bird Report: leaf litter, to leave or not to leave?

A royal is visiting us from the Arctic

You probably haven’t seen anything in the news about it, but I have reliable intel that a royal has quietly taken up residence on Cape Cod. In the Sagamore area, away from the gaze of paparazzi, a prince is spending some time along the canal and trying to blend in with the locals.

Early birds on Cape Cod

This week on The Bird Report, sometimes birds take the wrong exit off the freeway.

Waxwing poetic

On two occasions over the last week I found myself driving slowly around some back streets in Yarmouth Port, craning my neck, looking like a cat burglar casing the neighborhood. Or more likely around here, an overly aggressive realtor looking to pounce on a potential new listing.

Woodcocks and more signs of spring

As the season of mud settles in, this seems like a good time to talk about one if its biggest stars. This worm slurping dumpling of a bird dances its way back into our lives each March, when the aerial displays of the male become staple program fodder for nature centers and bird clubs everywhere.

Solitaire and mixed spring signals

I’ve been getting a lot of mixed signals from Mother Earth lately. On my early morning walk yesterday I saw an optimistic chipmunk, then a freshly dead garter snake that probably should have stayed in bed another two months.

Red Knots and horseshoe crabs

As I write this, Red Knots feel very far away. To be more precise, 7000 miles and three months away. These Arctic nesting shorebirds are marathon migrators, traveling from well above the Arctic circle to wintering areas at the other end of the planet each year.

Birds in love

It’s Valentine's Day, which means it’s time to sort through the picked over remains of the greeting cards to find the least groanworthy one. But us people aren’t the only ones suffering though – I mean reveling in love this time of year – it’s also courtin’ season for many species of birds.

Birds in love

It’s Valentine's Day, which means it’s time to sort through the picked over remains of the greeting cards to find the least groanworthy one. But us people aren’t the only ones suffering though – I mean reveling in love this time of year – it’s also courtin’ season for many species of birds.

Be on the lookout for ducks and eagles

This past weekend I was tasked with leading a duck and eagle safari on behalf of the remarkable Harwich Conservation Trust. With a full roster of 15 hopeful birdwatchers, my plan was to check various spots around the big pond complex in Harwich and Brewster, a great area to see winter ducks and the eagles that eat them.

An ode to a sparrow

Yesterday was a typical Tuesday. I was working at my desk at Wellfleet Bay sanctuary, while trickling through the back of my mind was that little stream of anxiety about what this week’s bird report should be about.

Snow birds, and yet another wayward westerner

This time the snow stuck. It was the perfect snow – not enough to shovel but enough to fuel a weekend of sledding and several days of successful wildlife tracking.

Wayward westerners

Yesterday morning I thought I might make this week’s piece about birding in snow, then, in true Cape Cod fashion, that lovely snow was gone within a few hours.

Delightful visitors have arrived on Cape Cod

On a frozen morning last week I stopped to sort through ducks at Town Cove in Orleans, a place that accumulates all sorts of waterfowl when other spots start to freeze.

Birds of Christmas present(s)

While this is the season of Christmas Bird Counts, wherein highly trained hit squads of birders comb all the birdy hotspots and seldom visited back roads of the Cape and beyond, it is not correct to think of one of these counts as a complete census.

Counting birds at Christmastime

It’s that “most wonderful” time of year when a birder’s fancy turns to Christmas – Bird Counts, that is. This past weekend began the 124th year of National Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count, and the 93rd year of counts here on Cape Cod.

Where have all the birds gone?

Where are my birds? When you work in the bird industry, it’s often the most common question you get, right up there with “how do I stop the woodpeckers pecking my house?”

The 2023 Cape Cod Bird Club's waterfowl census doesn't disappoint

This, after all, was the 40th anniversary of the Cape Cod Bird Club’s Waterfowl Census, and they would not be denied their ducks.

A visitor from the Arctic

That big, lemming-loving Arctic bird has finally been sighted again on Cape Cod. Just in from some tundra breeding ground in northern Canada or Alaska, this fierce and seldom-seen raptor of big, open areas is getting local birders excited for winter, with sightings of different birds in Dennis and Orleans.

Let's talk turkeys

At this turkey-oriented time, I’m here to take your mind off the fact that you have no plans to brine, or spatchcock, or deep fry a turkey in peanut oil, or whatever the gourmet types with endless free time tell us we should be doing to our turkeys.

Birds on boats

I’ve been on enough offshore boat trips in fall that I’ve seen someone with an actual oriole on their baseball cap.

Another week, another set of rare avian emissaries from the west

As so often happens, Facebook brought us word of the latest rare bird. A post in the Cape Cod Birders group on Monday showed clear photos of a hawk that, in the parlance of its native lands, ain’t from around these parts.

Rarity roundup: cemeteries and beyond

Spooky birds

Though we’re back to short-sleeve weather and barely a leaf has reached the ground, I assure you it is indeed late October, which means that All Hallows Eve is upon us.

It’s the season for rare hummingbirds on Cape Cod

Lately I’ve been looking for birds in a small community garden near my daughter’s school in Orleans — as we saw with last week’s state-first Virginia’s Warbler, community gardens can yield a bountiful bird harvest in fall.

Yes Virginia, there is a Warbler named after you

Ornithologist Mark Faherty says the fall season of rare bird sightings on Cape Cod has just started.

Yes Virginia, there is a Warbler named after you

Ornithologist Mark Faherty says the fall season of rare bird sightings on Cape Cod has just started.

The magic of the fall migration

On Monday morning, as my son and I walked to the bus stop a little before 7, I was already hearing warblers. Specifically, I was hearing the flight calls these little songbirds give during migration.

Backyard bird watching at its best

I finally have a little time to watch birds each day, and it’s all thanks to the Monomoy School District. Between my kindergarten-aged son’s absurdly early bus time of 6:52 AM and the time we have to get my daughter up for pre-school, I have one deliciously unstructured hour.

Hurricane Lee postgame bird analysis

Hurricane, then Tropical Storm, then “Post-Tropical Cyclone” Lee has come and gone. Lee barely grazed us with some ho-hum 50 mph gusts that downed a few trees, having passed well to our east. But how did it score in storm-birding terms?

The visitors that Hurricane Lee could bring

Birders are all secretly hoping Lee comes, and that Lee is bringing lots of gifts in the form of rare, storm-blown birds.

Fascinating Monomoy

Hundreds of thousands of shorebirds and seabirds breed, feed, and rest on Chatham’s barrier beaches. Importantly for these ISS surveys, thousands of normally kinetic shorebirds take a break from feeding to rest in certain parts of Monomoy during the high tide, at which point they are relatively easy to count.

Fall bird migration is a quiet affair

Fall migration is an Irish goodbye – by the time you notice you’re not hearing the catbirds anymore, they’ve been gone two weeks.

Late summer happenings in a post-plover world

The Lesser Sand-Plover, that enigmatic Asian visitor who brought birders from at least as far away as Canada, was ominously absent from South Cape Beach in Mashpee after 8 AM yesterday.

A different kind of plover is very far from home

The bird was indeed a plover, but not the one they were tasked with watching. This was a Mountain Plover, a scarce species of the high, dry plains east of the rockies, and one that eluded me thus far in my birding career.

Birds to look out for when you’re whale watching

It’s now high season for that traditional tourist activity, the whale watch. Us jaded locals probably don’t take advantage of this activity enough, though we live in one of just a handful of places in North America where it’s easy to see whales close to land.

Tern tern tern

It’s summertime on the Cape’s beaches, which for me always brings to mind that famous old song about seabirds – Tern! Tern! Tern! At least I assume it’s about the seabirds – it’s by the Byrds, after all.

A large mammal whose lifestyle benefits birds

This past weekend, the wife and I packed up the kids and headed west, bound for adventure in the exotic lands beyond the bridges. As much as I love the Cape, I need to head to places with richer woods and bigger wildlife now and again.

Watching the youngest generation emerge

In the birding calendar, late June is a great time to sit back, relax and watch some chicks.

June rarities in the bird world

Last week, full of foolish confidence, I declared that migration was over. This week’s report is about various migrants that are still passing through.

The sounds of nesting birds

I am officially calling it – spring migration is over. With migrating birds, as with people, there are always stragglers and wanderers who keep things interesting, but for all intents and purposes, it’s now simply breeding season.

The connection between horseshoe crabs and red knots

This week on The Bird Report, the connection between horseshoe crabs and red knots.

The many shades of the warblers of May

May is a month of intense and concentrated bird migration. Unlike fall, when legions of younger birds take their sweet time heading south over a period of several months, spring migration is short and serious – taking too long could mean you don’t get to breed this year.

Bird-a-thon aftermath

As the dust settles on another Mass Audubon Bird-a-thon weekend, it’s time to catch up with all that went down.

The Bird-a-thon

The last week or so has been an odd one in Cape Cod birding. While we were sitting and waiting on the songbird migration floodgates to open, pouring forth warblers, orioles, hummingbirds and such, the bird world came at us from a different direction.

A massive and likely unprecedented ornithological event

Though, as usual, I didn’t have any actual birding plans, my weekend somehow ended up a triumphant birding success.

Checking my predictions

Before last week’s summer weather, I made lofty predictions about various early and southern overshoot migrants we might see around here with that warm southerly air flow.