Mark Faherty

The incredible hit-parade of off-course birds from the Western US continued this week, with sightings of Western Kingbirds from High Head in Truro and Lark Sparrow and Bell’s Vireo at Fort Hill in Eastham. But instead of these actual birds, I’m more in the mood to talk about theoretical birds – the predicted influx of the so-called “winter finches." How do I know they’re coming? Because I read the Winter Finch Report, of course.

October is a time when I struggle with the bird report. The risk of producing a rambling, disjointed essay is high, as it feels like everything amazing in the birding world is happening at once. 

We are a weather-obsessed people – talking about the weather, prognosticating about the weather, complaining about the weather - so I assume you have checked the forecast for the next few days. But have you checked the BirdCast? Yes, there is such a thing, and it’s provided by your friends at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, as part of their quest to meet all of your birding needs. They are sort of becoming the Amazon.com of birding, but I digress.

It’s hard to avoid the subject of migration this time of year. Each week, perhaps each day brings new species leaving, arriving, or passing through this avian crossroads of an archipelago we all inhabit. Whether you are a connoisseur of the showy wading birds, an aficionado of the summer seabirds, or a fancier of waterfowl, there is something for everyone in mid-September. Unless of course, you don’t like wildlife, in which case you should probably switch to sports talk radio for a few minutes.

September is a time of transitions, especially here on the Cape. Summer visitors have transitioned back over the bridge. Our kids transition back to school, our beaches and parks transition back to local ownership. And perhaps more than in any other month, transitions in the bird world are everywhere evident, from the exodus of northern songbirds to the arrival of the first winter sea ducks. But few transitions are sadder than the loss of our hummingbirds, those kinetic clowns of flowery suburban backyards.

Most of you would agree that shorebirds are inherently beautiful – these graceful and delicate, long-winged beach sprites arrayed in subtly beautiful earth tones, often splashed with brighter orange or red, are not in need of further adornment. 

With summer winding down, and back to school time upon us, I thought we should check in on the kids of the bird world and see what they are facing this fall. With more than “pencils, books, and teacher’s dirty looks” to worry about, they may help put your kids’ or grandkids’ annual Labor Day malaise in perspective.

Late August often brings periods of unsettled weather, as if the engine of summer has begun to sputter a little. As a kid summering at White Horse Beach in Plymouth, I always enjoyed these August cold fronts because they cleared the beaches of people, leaving just me and the birds. 

A dragger steaming into Menemsha Harbor on Martha’s Vineyard back on August 6th was harboring a stowaway. This unauthorized passenger from the Caribbean had awkwardly boarded the boat about 5 miles south of Gay Head before settling calmly on the cooler to hitch a ride back to the harbor. The stowaway was a seabird known as the Brown Booby, the first of his kind ever seen on the Vineyard, and he brought birders from all over the island to get a peek.

Are there monsters in your barn? For property owners on the Outer Cape, the answer in recent years has increasingly been “yes.” I’m talking about categorically ugly, hissing, projectile vomiting monsters. But don’t call the Ghostbusters just yet, because these monsters have an important role to play in our ecosystem. They are Turkey Vultures, and they are nature’s morticians.

Astronomically speaking, we are only a third of the way through summer. But once August arrives, the term “late summer” starts to creep into our speech, and, to the dismay of school kids everywhere, back to school ads appear in the papers.

It’s late July, which means it’s peak time for some of my favorite flying critters. They include many of our most beautiful species and one of our most impressive long-distance migrants. They can often be found gracefully winging their way through your yard on their four wings. That’s right – four wings – because it’s time to talk butterflies.

There’s a sneaky bird in our midst. A bird so devious, so duplicitous that even this bird guy was recently fooled. To make matters worse, the tragedy I will now describe happened in my own backyard, just a few feet from my door. The innocent victims in this story are a pair of Carolina Wrens. The villain is a bird obscure to most but infamous to some: the Brown-headed Cowbird.

Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge includes a network of ever-shifting barrier beaches and islands dangling from the elbow of Cape Cod. Once home to a 19th-century fishing community complete with a school and, of course, a tavern, the island is now mostly designated as a federal wilderness area, so most of the eating and drinking is done by the wildlife these days. 

You may have noticed that the rotaries are choked with tentative, confused motorists, which must mean that July has occurred. And this year, the Bird Report falls squarely on Independence Day, that holiday that bottle-rockets us into the tourist season, so I feel more compelled than usual to address the most majestic of avian beasts, our national symbol, the Bald Eagle.