It’s fall on the Cape, which means it’s the absolute peak time for finding rare birds. And the list of wacky avian visitors for this fall just keeps growing. The most recent example is a pretty spectacular one – a Golden Eagle that turned up over an abandoned driving range in Eastham on Saturday.
A Golden Eagle used to be a once-every-thirty-years bird on Cape Cod, but this marks the second since 2008, both in Eastham.
Golden Eagles are always rare in the eastern US, but there is a very small breeding population in Eastern Canada that migrates through the northeast, mostly in November. They are mostly seen at inland hawk migration observatories like Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania, which sees over a hundred Golden Eagles each fall. Coastal hawk watches like Cape May in New Jersey see fewer, but a few dozen is possible. And at least one typically winters on the Quabbin Reservoir in central Mass. But here on Cape Cod they are a genuine rarity.
Keep in mind that Bald Eagle populations have skyrocketed, and we can now see them any month of the year on the Cape. Young Bald Eagles are all brown with scattered white mottling for their first four years, and many have mistaken these brown youngsters for Golden Eagles. And, to the uninitiated, Turkey Vultures are also superficially similar to Golden Eagles. A good way to tell if you are really seeing a Golden Eagle is to check the hackles, which are the feathers on the back of the neck. In all ages and plumages, Golden Eagles have, as you might expect, a golden sheen to the hackles, and it's visible at a surprising range of distances and light conditions. Around here we typically see young Goldens, which also have a sharply defined white base to the tail, and often crisp white patches on the underwings. When in doubt, as I always say, get a photo.
This particular Golden Eagle eventually drifted south over Fort Hill in Eastham, where it joined the eye-popping list of rare birds discovered there over the last few weeks, including a Bell’s Vireo and two very rare marsh birds: Sedge Wren and Yellow Rail. Fort Hill, which is a part of the Cape Cod National Seashore, is breathtaking spot with a lot to offer tourists and birds alike. A matrix of fields, pocket marshes, and woodlands perched at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean and a huge salt marsh, Fort Hill has always been a magnet for unusual birds. Among Cape and Islands birding hotspots, only Wellfleet Bay sanctuary has a longer bird list.
But Fort Hill isn’t the only hotspot in town. And frankly, it’s getting a little crowded with birders and people are trampling some of the habitat. If everyone birded their favorite local patch with the same fervor, I guarantee that all kinds of crazy birds would be discovered. When I started doing Christmas Bird Counts many years ago, I heard of this legendary suburban neighborhood thicket somewhere in Dennis or Yarmouth that once harbored a Townsend’s Warbler, a Painted Bunting, a Clay-colored Sparrow, and one other rarity that I can’t remember, all in the space of an hour. That’s the beauty of the Cape Cod and Islands - the whole place a genuine rare bird trap, and the most unassuming neighborhood stream thicket or even backyard could be hiding just about any weird bird you can think of. Your job is to find it.
