The Cape and Islands Christmas Bird counts have been memorable with more species recorded and really “off the charts” numbers of rare birds including many some warbler species that should be in South America. The counts have been conducted in fairly good weather with light winds and some sunshine. The birding has been great with many new record high counts of birds and a stunning number of rare birds that quicken the pulse of birders around New England.
The last Christmas Count of the season will be the Vineyard CBC that is going to occur this coming Saturday, January 3 in the New Year, 2015. The Mid-Cape Count was run on December 26 and was one of the best ever. As the name implies it covers the Mid-Cape area including the all the villages in the Town of Barnstable, Yarmouth, parts of Dennis, Sandwich and Mashpee. They recorded a whopping 138 species delighting the co-compilers Peter and Jeremiah Trimble of Centerville.
Some of the highlights included 2 snow geese, a Eurasian wigeon, 4 harlequin ducks, 2 Barrow’s Goldeneyes, both species of waterfowl that are scarce in the region, 5 northern bob-white, 2 Bald Eagles, 5 snowy owls, a long-eared owl, 2 short-eared owls as well as 8 northern saw-whet owls. Other highlights were a northern shrike, 3 orange-crowned warblers, 2 yellow-breasted chats, 3 seaside sparrows, 3 rusty blackbirds, a Baltimore oriole and a white-eyed vireo, a bird that should be in south Florida or the tropics. Despite overcast skies and snow showers the participants shouldered on and had a great day after Christmas. A very rare duck from Europe and Asia called a tufted duck was seen in Salt Pond in Falmouth the day before and the day after the count and gets recorded as a count week bird.
The Nantucket CBC went off on the 28th and had lots of island birders but even more off-islanders that came to bird that special place that enjoys perhaps the finest winter birding in New England. The weather was OK but not great but the birds that were discovered on count day made this one of the more memorable counts I can recall ever in the region.
Numerous highlights in order of rarity in this commentators mind were a female type American redstart that was well photographed. This likely young bird should be enjoying milder conditions with abundant insects south of the equator in Ecuador and Peru. I can recall perhaps one other record of this on a CBC in New England some 15 years ago on the Buzzard’s Bay CBC. A northern waterthrush in town was an excellent find. Then North America’s smallest and scarcest rail, a yellow rail was discovered at dusk in a marsh along Nantucket Harbor. It ran a short ways in the marsh grass then froze “playing possum” for about 7 minutes while stunned observers took obscured photos of this bird with its head in the grass and its wings sticking up, frozen to the spot. This behavior from any rail has not been described and the Nantucket yellow rail find of 2014 was historic. Nantucket has more yellow rail sightings over the years on the CBC than all others New England CBC combined in history and likely more than anywhere north of the Gulf Coast!
A male tufted duck was also found, another rare bird in this part of the world and a different bird than the one in Falmouth which was seen the same day and has a longer tuft on its head. A mew gull likely the larger race from northeast Russia a subspecies known as Kamchatka Gull, 2 little gulls, 4 black-headed gulls, 212 dovekies, small black and white alcids and 9 snowy owls were just more highlights of which there are far too many to list. The count total as it stands now is 133 species.
