Kind of like our weather, it’s often hard to make sense of the birds around here. A common theme on the bird report is the omnidirectional origins of the interesting birds we see, especially in fall – in any given week we may see lost birds from Europe, Western Canada, the Caribbean, and the desert southwest. This week is a good example, with species hailing from all of these destinations making landfall on the Cape. It’s enough to make a non-birder dizzy – aren’t birds just supposed to migrate south?
Some Caribbean flavor came in the form of a Gray Kingbird at Fort Hill in Eastham and the continuing Brown Booby in Dennis – both are more typical of warm coastal regions south of Florida, both were likely brought north by strong southerly winds. The Gray Kingbird, just the 6th or 7th state record, was sadly a one-day-wonder, but the booby is downright performative, still posing on rocks by Sesuit Harbor or diving for fish off Corporation Beach for going on two weeks now.
A birder looking for that Gray Kingbird last week struck out, instead coming across a pretty swell consolation prize in the form of an Ash-throated Flycatcher. These are paler, smaller, strictly western versions of the Great-crested Flycatchers that breed commonly around here. Like the Gray Kingbird, this furtive, introverted bird did not stick around for the birders who chased it.
Also from the Southwest, the increasingly predictable appearance of fall Cave Swallows materialized this week following strong southwest winds. For 15 years or so, the southwestern subspecies of Cave Swallow has been blowing into the northeast as far as Newfoundland in early to mid-November, though the northernmost breeding population is no closer than Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. Look for these attractive swallows either alone or among other late swallows, mainly Tree and a few Barn Swallows. Cave Swallows have a similar blue and red color palette to our familiar Barn Swallows, but with a pale collar, short, square tail, and buffy rump – always look at those rumps.
From points north, we have seen the first envoys of those erratic winter visitors we birders love to prognosticate about each fall – winter finches and Snowy Owls. Some years we see essentially none of these unpredictable wanderers, as ample food resources keep them in the boreal and arctic regions all winter. But the forecast this winter is for an influx of various winter finches as cone and other tree crops have failed across much of the boreal forest. Already we have been seeing decent numbers of Purple Finches, and, more promisingly, always rare Evening Grosbeaks have been turning up over the last week or so, including small flocks at feeders in recent days. Look for husky, yellow and gray finches that resemble a massive, thick-billed goldfinch, though males are florid with patches of striking yellow, black and white. They like fruit trees and platform feeders with black oil sunflower seed.
And while we don’t yet know if it will be a good Snowy Owl winter, I do know that we won’t get completely skunked – a lucky homeowner in Barnstable photographed one sitting on their roof deck near Barnstable Harbor yesterday, and even watched it cough up a pellet.
So as always, don’t forget to look out the window. You never know when a Snowy Owl is going to land on your roof deck, or a Caribbean seabird will be sitting on a rock in the harbor. And, of course, don’t forget to look at those rumps. Of the swallows, that is, to see if they are Cave Swallows – don’t just go around indiscriminately looking at rumps and then blame me when you get caught.
