Cape Cod Weekly Wildlife Sightings is sponsored by the Bird Watchers General Store in Orleans and Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. The following sightings were reported between December 20, 2022 and January 3, 2023.
A Tufted Duck was found on Hinckley’s Pond in Harwich on the 1st and the Western Grebe continues on Mashpee-Wakeby Pond.
At least one Painted Bunting is visiting feeders in Sandwich.
An out-of-season Rose-breasted Grosbeak has been visiting a feeder in Wellfleet on and off for a week.
Highlights from the Mid-Cape Christmas Bird Count on 12/27 included a Western Tanager at a private feeder in West Barnstable, a King Eider at Corporation Beach in Dennis, 6 Long-billed Dowitchers and 3 Killdeer in Centerville, and several highlights from Hyannis including 2 Black-headed Gulls, a Sora, and a Semipalmated Plover.
The Truro Christmas Bird Count was held on 12/30 with highlights including 53 Red Crossbills, 28 Pine Siskins, 15 Northern Saw-whet Owls, a Northern Shrike in Wellfleet, 4 Clapper Rails on the Herring River, and a Glaucous Gull in Provincetown.
Sightings at Race Point in Provincetown included 2 Pacific Loons and a late Great Shearwater, plus 3 Dovekies, a Thick-billed Murre, 15 Common Murres, 235 Razorbills, and 18 Iceland Gulls.
A shorebird survey at Monomoy refuge in Chatham on the 2nd tallied 42 Black-bellied Plovers, a Killdeer, 750 Dunlin, 52 Red Knots, and a very late Least Sandpiper.
Other sightings around the Cape included 3 Chipping Sparrows in Falmouth, a Snowy Egret in West Dennis, two continuing Western Willets at Forest Beach in Chatham, flocks of up to 23 Red Crossbills at over a dozen locations, several reports of single Orange-crowned Warblers and Baltimore Orioles, single Rusty Blackbirds in Barnstable and Truro, and two Short-eared Owls at Nauset Beach.