Weekly Bird Report on WCAI

The much-heralded Brood XIV 17-year cicadas have finally arrived. Have they been serenading you? If you're in the emergence zone, this is really old news at this point, as they emerged weeks ago and most have probably laid eggs and kicked the bucket at this point. But how does this apparent bonanza affect birds?

For several years, I've had a mostly unoccupied screech-owl box on an oak tree in the narrow strip of woods in my backyard. I hung it about 14 feet up, positioned so we can see the hole from the house, and have monitored it expectantly ever since.

Back on Memorial Day, as we Harwich Fahertys discussed what to do, I coyly suggested a family hike with some Upper Cape friends of ours. But where?

This has been one of those rare weeks where enough happened to fuel several weeks of bird reports — a spring nor'easter that poured rare seabirds into Cape Cod Bay, a colony of at least five apparently nesting Swallow-tailed Kites in Mashpee that also shattered the state high count, and, most importantly, the cuteness overload of baby owls fledging in my very own yard.

Rebekah Ambrose was asking for help identifying a bird she photographed in Barnstable, and her photos showed the first-ever Anhinga for the Cape and Islands.

After a bleak winter, and a reluctant, rainy spring, we Cape and Islands year-rounders deserve a flowery and mild May.

While the turn of the calendar to May brings an avalanche of phenological change to yards and woods, maybe none is so obvious, and welcome, as the change in the morning soundscape.

It's not even May, and the “Swallow-tailed Kite triangle” of Cape Cod is already popping off with early sightings. There were no fewer than five reports of this improbably graceful hawk over the last week.

Let's talk about everyone's favorite garden accessory, the Ruby-throated Hummingbird. Quite a few have been reported already, with the first sighted back on the 17th in Brewster.

It's a classic birding bummer — sometimes a rare bird comes to light too late for birders to see it, to the chagrin of those who missed out.

On Sunday, a rare bird was discovered on Great Pond in Eastham, driving local birders loony. This unassuming gray and white waterbird was in the wrong kind of water in the wrong town on the wrong coast.

This year it turned out that, as I was heading to Florida, Florida was heading to Cape Cod. As soon as I got down there I saw the rare bird alert from back home blowing up with Florida birds, most of which I didn't even see while I was in Florida.

March may come in like a lion, but around here it goes out on the crooked wings of an Osprey.

They're baaaaack! Here on the cusp of astronomical spring, those adorable little beach goers that certain people love to hate have arrived, or at least the first few scouts have. Piping Plovers have been seen in Orleans, Hyannis, and Sandwich, and more are likely out there on the bleak beaches of March

When Bald Eagles took over an Osprey nest on the Outer Cape two years ago it meant that, for the first time since the 1800s out here, the eagle had landed.

A lanky and mysterious stranger arrived in Provincetown last week, where he is often seen loitering near the famous Boy Beach at the west end. Flamboyantly arrayed in feathers, this visitor has developed quite a following, but it's not for a drag show at the Post Office Cabaret.

As I write on this coldest day of the season thus far, it seems wise to discuss an indoor birding activity almost universally enjoyed by bird fanciers – backyard bird feeding.

I thought it might have been a female Ring-necked Duck, but a view through my spotting scope showed the characteristic cowlick of a female Tufted Duck, a rare visitor from Europe.

We are overdue for another episode of everyone's favorite made-up, bird-related, Cape Cod-based award show: the Bird Grammys!

By mid-winter, the prize rare birds have all been established and often settle into a routine.

As this throwback winter plods on, with ice fishers on the ponds and ice floes on the bay, one of the most common questions us bird folks get is “how do birds survive these brutal temperatures?”

Suddenly a big bird rocketed into view – a Peregrine Falcon, death missile of the tidal flats, no doubt hunting the shorebirds.

With just a few days left in 2024, the undisputed bird of the year for Cape Cod was found in Chatham.

Amidst the silent majesty of this cold Christmas morn, I can only assume you are all gathered around the radio, in the warm embrace of kith and kin, waiting to hear the latest results of the local bird counts.

This is one of those cases where a bird in the hand was going to be worth at least two in the bush. We needed a licensed hummingbird bander to catch and examine it.

On Nantucket this week, the birders are all having flashbacks to October of 2012, when Hurricane Sandy famously devastated parts of the East Coast.

It's Thanksgiving Eve, so I suppose you expect me to dish out the usual stale, leftover poultry puns sandwiched between the same old turkey fun facts. Well, you're right. So let's not mince words and get right into to the meat of the topic.

Cory's are the biggest of our four shearwaters, a group of wind-surfing seabirds who navigate the trackless oceans by smell, riding the wind deflected upwards off waves to effortlessly cover hundreds of miles in search of fish and squid.

Let's face it, we all woke up this morning with the same question: what's going on with seabirds right now? I'm glad you asked, because the answer is “a whole helluva lot.”

Another week, another lost flycatcher from some far-flung locale has turned up. This one had been flung further than most, having perhaps started its journey as far away as Argentina.

With an exceedingly rare Gray Kingbird that played hide and seek with birders in Eastham this week, the Cape reclaimed the title of rare bird capital of the region, but sadly this Caribbean visitor kept moving - it was last seen on the 19th at Nauset Light Beach.

Last week's Vermilion Flycatcher, the briefly famous female photographed at South Cape Beach in Mashpee, turned out to be a one-day wonder, as we birders say – she hasn't been seen since. Beyond a wayward Western Kingbird that's still hanging around Peterson Farm in Falmouth, it was a quiet week on the Cape for fall rarities.

As we turn another calendar page, we're also turning a corner in the fall migration. I've always preferred October to September, mainly because we tend to get more birds later in the fall.

You may have noticed that it rained recently, for the first time in what seemed like years. In addition to a satisfying, multi-day soaking of our parched soils, this weather also brought the kind of winds that get the attention of storm bird chasers, that hardy and quirky subset of the already quirky subset of society that is birders.

When it comes to bird photography, experienced practitioners know that sometimes it's best to shoot first and ask questions later. What I mean is, even expert birders don't always know exactly what they're looking at until they get home and look at the photos.

More than 300 species of birds have been recorded from Race Point, the second-highest list of anywhere on the Cape and Islands.

It's not just back to school time for kids, all those billions of young birds that hatched over the spring and summer need to learn how to be birds, and it's a real school of hard knocks.

In all my years of camping and doing field work around the US I never knew that flying squirrels could be camp scavengers.

The birds, being well-versed in Shakespeare, know that all the world's a stage. Maybe not, but what they do know is that some of the world's a staging area, and one of the most important staging areas is right here on the Cape and Islands.

Let's face it, insects suffer from a likeability deficit akin to that of most politicians, what with the biting and the disease transmission and the landing on your food right when you're about to eat it and all. But I think we can all get behind butterflies, those harmless, even beneficial, and undeniably beautiful ambassadors for the insect world.

About 20 years ago I was doing bird surveys for my graduate research all through the Cape Cod National Seashore – I had over 300 survey points from Fort Hill in Eastham to Wood End in Provincetown, and I knew the park, including deep, off-trail areas, as well as anyone.

On Monday, though it's full-on tourist season and many of my local friends had been putting out “shelter in place” warnings on social media, I bravely ventured from the Lower Cape to deep in the heart of the Upper Cape.

Recently, Mass Audubon has turned its conservational gaze upon an inconspicuous and imperiled coastal resident. This saltmarsh sprite lives life on the edge, only nesting in the daily-flooded coastal marshes from southern Maine to Chesapeake Bay, where they struggle to complete their nesting cycle between the monthly high tides.