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. This bird held court for over a week, delighting hundreds of birders in the process. Except for one - I had not yet had a chance to go see it, and I fear I may be out of luck. I’m not alone – I saw a birder in the vast rare bird chat group we all follow begging for updates, as he was planning to come down from Toronto to see it. I somehow didn’t get there from Harwich.
I suspect I did see one, long ago, as a lucky 12-year-old who got to accompany his parents to Africa to see their new grandchild. I was at a beach where these plovers, then known as Mongolian Plovers, should have been common in winter, but my callow eyes apparently didn’t discern them enough to register them in the bird book. If only eBird and digital cameras existed in the 80s, maybe I wouldn’t have been so lazy. This species may have to remain an aspirational gap in my life list.
Luckily there are other things to distract me from my abject birding failure, as we enter what is arguably the best birding season around here. Late summer into fall brings not just lost, oddball plovers, but a few dozen species of transient shorebirds, the passage of dozens more species of northern songbirds, the great pre-migratory Tree Swallow swarms, early hawk and falcon movements, and more.
A classic Cape birding experience in late summer is a close encounter with a Peregrine Falcon, if you’re prepared to notice it– the encounters are usually brief. An experienced birder has that sleek, fast silhouette burned into their brain. I was at Nauset spit recently, and though it was a nice weekend beach day, the ocean side was abandoned because the ceaseless erosion had closed access for beach drivers. Late in the day I noticed a Peregrine Falcon streaking down the spine of the dune a few hundred yards north, appearing and disappearing above the grass. I was able to get my companions on it just as it streaked by within 50 feet or so. This dark juvenile was clearly on a mission, soon to be the last thing some unfortunate other bird ever sees.
In bigger dune systems, mainly ones with bayberry thickets and wetlands, Tree Swallows are now gathering in their impressive annual staging flocks, looking like pepper flakes in boiling water. Over 3000 were reported over the Sandy Neck dunes this week, where they can choose either their usual diet of flying insects over the many wetlands therein, or switch to waxy, fragrant bayberries, as they do for some reason – few other birds will eat these hard little fruits, which must taste like biting into a Yankee Candle.
Hummingbirds are also at their commonest right now, as this summer’s chicks are out in the world. I’ve been seeing them everywhere this week, often in twos and threes. I watched one flycatching in the woods in my yard, which is how they balance out all that sugar, but mostly you’ll notice them at flowers, of course – that one soon returned to the red flowers of my native honeysuckle vine. I also saw some teed up on a trellis of scarlet runner beans at a community garden. But my favorite way to experience the season’s last hummingbirds is in a bordering wetland, where they stake out patches of nectar rich cardinal flower and jewelweed. If you can find these plants on some local wetland trail, you won’t have to wait long to see a hummingbird.
So if you, too missed out on the famous sand-plover, take heart, as late summer has much to offer the dejected birder in a post-plover world. But seriously, if you see that plover again, please let me know.
