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"The Horizon was a Blur of Sooty Shearwaters Zipping Up and Down": Seabird Sightings Reward Birders

Neil DeMaster / flickr
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The middle of June is the breeding season for all the birds that are currently visiting the Cape and Islands. From American Robins in your yard, to Eastern Towhees in scrub oak and shrubby habitats, to widespread nesting yellow warblers and common yellowthroats, the region is awash in nesting birds. However, perhaps the most interesting birds from a birder's perspective are the seabirds: the tubenoses and jaegers that spend the summers off our coastline.

The geographical shape of Cape Cod and the Islands is the perfect obstruction to alter sea birds' paths and allow them to be viewed from shore. The many advantages of shore-based sea birding are rather obvious. No seasickness, no rocking boats that make focusing on a bird nearly impossible; you're able to use a spotting scope, something just not possible on most boats under a thousand feet long; no other people getting sick and making the observer queasy; and no big expense of a deep-water pelagic trip. The various whale watching boats from Provincetown, Barnstable, Plymouth and anywhere else I missed offer an excellent value and offer chances to get up close views of many pelagic species.

Still there is nothing quite like sea birding with one’s own feet on terra firma. The only catch to sea birding from land is that when the birds are pushed up against a shoreline, the winds and weather are appalling. So looking out to sea from a rocking car being buffeted by wind, rain, sleet and sand can get a bit tiresome. Or find a viewing point protected from the elements like a corner behind a bathhouse or any kind of shelter that will keep your optics clean and allow you to see the parade of birds passing by.

The worse the weather is and the longer it lasts, the more birds there are to see. In fact Cape Cod Bay offers the best shore based sea birding in the world and birders come from far and wide for nor’easters pretty much whenever a big one is predicted to hit our area. Provincetown beaches are tremendous for seabirds, and with the right weather both the south side of the Vineyard and Nantucket can be very good. Hurricanes are the ultimate for sea birders, offering once in a lifetime chances at tropical seabirds blown far north of where they want to be - but that is for another Bird Report.

The wind blew hard out of south/southeast on June 8, all night on the 8th and morning of the 9th, delivering a massive number of shearwaters to Tuckernuck and Nantucket Islands south shore. The morning of June 9th was spectacular on these islands as many thousands of Cory’s Shearwaters, Sooty Shearwaters, a few Great and Manx Shearwaters, 2 Northern Fulmars, a few Northern Gannets, dozens of Wilson’s Storm-Petrels, a couple of Parasitic Jaegers and a South Polar Skua were seen.

This impressive number of seabirds was just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, as the 23 to 30 mph wind was not really strong enough to drive them in very close. A spotting scope was needed to identify most of the birds. The horizon was a blur of Sooty Shearwaters zipping up and down. It was a great show, and these birds were heading north where they come to spend the summer, having already bred on some remote islands in the far south of the Atlantic. They come to spend our summer but it is their winter. It is one of the greatest shows on earth.