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. Luckily for you, since this material has a short shelf life, I’m going to cover all of it right now! Maybe.
Let’s start with that storm. Thursday's nor’easter capped a week of good, old fashioned Cape Cod spring weather – cold, with winds out of the north or east. These conditions completely shut down spring migration for days, and birders were fully bored and grumpy by the time that storm rolled in. This classic storm brought northeast winds on Thursday gusting around 50 mph, loading up the bay with obscure, offshore seabirds from the Gulf of Maine. Then right on schedule the winds switched to northwest overnight, assuring that any seabirds trying to exit the bay in the morning would be pushed up against the beaches at the inside elbow of the Cape, especially First Encounter in Eastham.
As it happened, I was planning on a half-heated “Big Day” of birding for a local Mass Audubon fundraising effort that day, in between other work and dad duties. The small team of fundraisers I was supposed to be leading had sensibly bailed due to the storm. But I was undeterred. After putting my son on the bus a little before 7, and before my daughter woke up, I scooted over to Skaket Beach in Orleans — a poor-man’s First Encounter, to be sure, but still pretty good.
I ducked behind the bathroom buildings and set my scope on the churning surf to my west. Among the hundreds of Northern Gannets, I saw little Leach’s Storm-Petrels streaming east, appearing then disappearing in the deep wave troughs. I’ve done whole bird reports about this mysterious species if you want to dig them out of the archives. I next noticed a few late kittiwakes riding the wind at the horizon — these little, cliff-nesting gulls of the north are here every winter but you’ve probably never seen one as they are true ocean birds, never deigning to visit a Burger King parking lot and rarely even resting on a beach.
Some plump little sandpipers with red bellies popped up to my right — Red Phalaropes! These offshore oddities would normally move from wintering waters off West Africa to the Arctic without coming within sight of our beaches, so these storms offer a rare chance to see these little beauties. Thanks to the topsy-turvy mating system of phalaropes, females are bright red and mate with many of the more subdued males, who are left to care for the nest and chicks while she goes all Eat, Pray, Love and pursues other dudes. Those at First Encounter were lucky enough to see numbers of both Red and Red-necked Phalaropes paddling around the marsh next to the entrance road, though they had cleared out by the time I arrived there later.
Another bird I was expecting from this storm was the famously globetrotting Arctic Tern. They pass offshore in May as part of their 25,000 million annual migration from pole to pole, but rarely within sight of land. Conditions were brutal, but I forced off some shots at the small terns flock I saw, and sure enough, the one clear photo was of an Arctic. Over 300 passed Race Point in Provincetown that day, according to local seabird aficionado and crazy person Peter Flood, who spent 9 1/2 hours at wind-blasted Race Point on Friday.
Well look at that, my time is up! You didn’t think I was really going to cover all that stuff in the lede, did you? No way — a good bird reporter always keeps a few things in his back pocket in case of a slow news week. I’ll cover all of them next week! Maybe.
