Mark Faherty
Host, The Weekly Bird ReportMark Faherty writes the Weekly Bird Report.
Mark has been the Science Coordinator at Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary since August 2007 and has led birding trips for Mass Audubon since 2002. While his current projects involve everything from oysters and horseshoe crabs to bats and butterflies, he has studied primarily bird ecology for the last 20 years, working on research projects in Kenya, Florida, Texas, California, Arizona, Mexico, and the Pacific Northwest. He was a counter for the famous River of Raptors hawk watch in Veracruz, Mexico, and has birded Africa, Panama, Belize, and both Eastern and Western Europe. Mark is an emcee and trip leader for multiple birding festivals and leads workshops on birding by ear, eBird, birding apps, and general bird identification. He is past president of the Cape Cod Bird Club and current member of the Massachusetts Avian Records Committee.
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An epic wreck of Atlantic saury, a little-known North Atlantic baitfish, has washed up along the bay beaches from Brewster to Wellfleet, drawing thousands of gulls, Northern Gannets, Cory’s Shearwaters and even a Pomarine Jaeger to the feast. Here’s what’s behind the spectacle, why the fish keep getting misidentified as needlefish and half-beaks, and where you might still catch the tail end of the show. -
Juncos are in, the layers are out, and a flock of northern wanderers is easing the Cape into winter. A White-winged Crossbill turned up at Sandy Neck, Pine Siskins are arriving in good numbers, and the annual winter finch forecast offers some early clues about what’s next. -
It’s a juvenile Purple Gallinule with ginormous feet, an appetite for spiders and no fear of people, and it’s the rarest thing in a Cape Cod cranberry bog this fall. Find out what brought it to West Yarmouth and why the harvest may be keeping it fed. -
A Crested Caracara spent a month at Wellfleet’s Duck Harbor, drawing birders from all over, then vanished. Then one flapped across the windshield on the way to Red River Beach in Harwich. -
When the nor'easter finally let up, a backed-up wave of fall migrants arrived on the Cape, from Black-throated Blue Warblers to a Bell's Vireo. More may be here right now. -
Leach's Storm-Petrels, Long-tailed Jaegers, Northern Fulmars, a South Polar Skua and two Sabine's Gulls all rode in on a stubborn nor'easter. Here's a look at who showed up, where to find them, and why the storm just wouldn't leave. -
A whale watch out of Barnstable Harbor turns into an unforgettable show of humpbacks, dolphins, and pelagic birds feeding together off Stellwagen Bank. Plus, a Red-necked Phalarope, four species of shearwater, and one very out-of-place Black Vulture in Orleans. -
Fall migration turns the yard into a crossroads, from a pale young Blackburnian Warbler foraging on the ground to a bedraggled Broad-winged Hawk pausing mid-journey. Both are headed thousands of miles south, possibly converging in the cloud forests of the Andes. -
The Crested Caracara pulled its usual disappearing act in Wellfleet, and a Swallow tailed Kite in Mashpee just set a state record for the latest sighting ever. It's peak shorebird migration season, and it's time these underrated travelers got some airtime, with a beginner's guide to the sandpipers and plovers gathering on Cape Cod's flats before their long flights south. -
A Crested Caracara turns up at Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, marking the second Cape sighting of this warm-climate raptor this summer. This report covers the species' puzzling northward push since 2020, plus other notable birds including a Buff-breasted Sandpiper, Tricolored Heron, and a performative Clapper Rail in West Harwich.
