Category Archives: cape cod birds

Spring is Sneaking In….

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Sorry I haven’t posted this week but I’ve been sick and was unable to post. I have tons of new pictures to share, though, so be sure to visit over the weekend.

One of my favorite early spring signs is seeing the snowdrops bloom. This year they at least didn’t have to bloom in the snow!
Skunk cabbage is growing in wetland areas….
All the budding bushes and shrubs are giving the landscape a pink tinge….
And there’s something different in the ponds….
Green plants are already growing, reaching for the sun!
And winter ducks, such as this male red-breasted merganser are courting and displaying even as they prepare for their long journey north to breed and nest.

The Eagle has Landed!

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If you live on Cape Cod you probably know that sighting an adult bald eagle is not very common, even in winter when we do get a few eagle sightings.This winter there have actually been a fair number of eagles about, including this adult that has been hanging around in Mashpee. This photo is by Mary Noonan Keleher of Mashpee for although I did get to see the eagle I have no pictures to share. Let’s just say the eagle is a dark speck with a white head in my photos.

Bald eagles nest a bit to our north and also to our south and west but so far not on the Cape itself. As you probably know, eagles are birds of prey and eat just about anything from ducks to mice to fish. They are also scavengers and will eat the prey of other animals as well as hang out at the dump.
Have you ever seen a bald eagle?

Mallards

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Mallards are so common that we often take them for granted so it’s always nice to take a kid along to remind you to really appreciate these lovely ducks.The female is not as showy as the male but still quite beautiful in her subtle way.
The drakes are in fine dress all through the year with that bright yellow bill and shiny green head.
Mallards are easily recognizable to most families thanks to the famous story about the ducks at Boston’s Public Garden, “Make Way for Ducklings” by Robert McKloskey

Ruddy Turnstones

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One of the first shorebirds I could identify for sure as a kid was a ruddy turnstone. They have very distinctive markings, are not very shy and if you watch them long enough they do exactly what their name suggests. They turn over stones to look for food.These guys were found at Dowse’s Beach in Osterville this week. There were about a dozen mixed in with the local winter sanderlings. Turnstones don’t generally winter here though they are seen sporadically. I don’t know if these have been here all winter or if they are early arrivals on their way north. They are in winter plumage that is turning.
They have the most wonderful markings.
Here is one getting behind a stone or shell to turn it over.
What did it find? Mostly they are looking for invertebrates to eat such as worms, small crabs, etc.
In this picture above you can see the orange on the legs. Have you ever seen one of these birds?

Winter Sanderlings

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I love sanderlings and sandpipers. They accompany me on many a beach walk, especially in the fall and winter….

For many folks all the little birds running around on the beach are sandpipers and although that is not always technically correct it is often close enough. Even good birders refer to the whole group as “peeps” or “pipers” and sometimes indentifying them, especially in winter can be tricky.

I took this photo at quite a distance but I believe these are sanderlings in the top picture. The area I took the photos in has had both dunlins and western sandpipers over the last few weeks as well as sanderlings and winter shorebird plumages can be a tough call. You need to look at the overall shape, size, behavior, etc.
I believe the bird in the second photo is also a sanderling. I thought it might be a dulin, which are a bit chunkier and have a longer bill that curves down a bit but another birder I spoke with is pretty sure it is a sanderling. I am happy to be corrected so please feel free to chime in.
These two shots are definitely of sanderlings. Jaunty little guys, don’t you think?
They are often on our beaches all winter and will soon be molting and getting their summer plumages. The dunlins will, too. Then they will all be off to the north where they will mate and nest. They will return here in the fall.

Eider Ducks

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If you walk along the Cape Cod Canal or along the Sandwich beaches you will find huge rafts of common eider ducks. These northern ducks gather here by the thousands late in the fall and stay here all winter. Although smaller groups may be found all along the coast of the Cape each winter these mussel loving birds really congregate in this area due to the huge concentration of mussels, sea urchins and other favorite foods.The beautiful males or drakes are marked with lovely and distinct black and white patterns.
The females are also lovely but a more muted brown. Eiders nest much farther north than the Cape (though it is thought some are nesting here now) and are colonial nesters, meaning they like to nest in large groups. The color of the females helps them blend into the sand or dirt they scrape a nest in.
In any flock of eiders you may see what look like oddly marked birds that are neither marked like males or females. These are the immature or young ducks that haven’t got their full plumages yet.
At one point eiders were hunted almost to extinction for their beautiful feathers. If you’ve heard of eider down, that referred to the soft down from the eider duck’s breast. Coats and jackets were also made from their skins. Today these birds are safe from this sort of hunting and their populations have made a good come back.

Waiting for the snow….

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These photos were taken a few days ago when it was sunny but very cold. We are waiting for snow to fall here on Cape Cod so I thought I’d just post these for fun. The first gull is a greater black backed gull.These gulls look black against the light but that’s just because the sun is behind them, making them look like silhouettes.

These gulls were in the parking lot sitting out of the wind, at least the wind off the water. Most of these are ring billed gulls.Stay warm!

"Someone’s been sleeping in my bed," said the little owl…

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Earlier this week a reader of my Weekly Nature Watch column (Enterprise newspapers) called to tell me they had a screech owl sitting on a branch in their yard. They had previously had screech owls in a nesting box they had built but the day before they called me a squirrel had moved into the box. It was rainy, windy and cold the day I went over and sure enough, there was the little screech owl sitting on the branch, watching the box…..Every now and then the squirrel peeked out of the box but mostly it stayed inside and let the owl stare and stare and get wet and cold…..Screech owls are pretty common on the Cape and they are fairly easy to lure to nest boxes. Owl nest boxes have a 3″ hole which unfortunately is plenty big for squirrels, too. You can see that this box has even had the hole edges chewed on, most likely by squirrels, which enlarges the hole. It is not uncommon for screech owls and squirrels to go back and forth winning the box back and then losing it again. Home owners that prefer the owls are encouraged to clean the squirrel nest materials out of the box daily so the owl can return. The squirrels may still win, however.

These homeowners were adding several other nest boxes this week so it will be interesting to see what happens next. Screech owls are using boxes or holes in trees to roost right now. They don’t nest until February or March. You may be hearing great horned owls right now because they are getting ready to nest and all that hooting is helping them find a mate. Screech owls don’t hoot, by the way. They either let loose with a blood curdling screech or make a sound that is sort of like the whinnying of a horse.

Young gulls….

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are easy to recognize with their gray and rather mottled appearance and there are quite a few of them on our beaches and in parking lots right now. Some species of gull keep their immature plumage for up to 4 years though the average is probably more like 2-3 years.

This young bird is a first year herring gull. Herring gulls used to be the dominant gull on the Cape, with a few greater Black-backed gulls mixed in and laughing gulls in the summer. Black-backs are now the dominant gull, I believe. They are the largest gull and very aggressive so that is not surprising. There are still plenty of herring gulls around, though. They are the gulls most people around here refer to as sea gulls. There aren’t really any particular birds named sea gull, by the way. It’s just a general sort of name, like minnows for tiny fish…..

This is an adult herring gull starting to go into its fall plumage. See the red tip at the end of the beak? That is fading now but in the spring and summer that is a bright red. Baby gulls eat food regurgitated by their parents and they let their parents know they are hungry by pecking on the red spot.
Do you know why herring gulls are called herring gulls?