BIRD SIGHTINGS

Recent sightings on Cape Cod (through Jan. 3) as reported to Mass Audubon.

A tufted duck was found on Hinckley’s Pond in Harwich and the Western grebe continued on Mashpee-Wakeby Pond.

At least one painted bunting visited feeders in Sandwich.

An out-of-season rose-breasted grosbeak visited a feeder in Wellfleet on and off for a week.

Highlights from the Mid-Cape Christmas Bird Count 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 had 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 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.

If you have questions about these sightings, or want to report a sighting, call the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary at 508-349-2615 or send e-mail to cape.sightings@massaudubon.org.