Recent bird sightings as reported to the Massachusetts Audubon Society:
Migrants were on the move last week as breeding activity neared its peak. Among the traditional late migrants were shorebird species such as ruddy turnstone, red knot, and white-rumped sandpiper, as well as passerines including olive-sided, yellow-bellied, acadian, and alder flycatcher, gray-cheeked thrush, and mourning warbler.
►Provincetown: A storm early last week produced some interesting sightings at Race Point, including 54 common loons; three great, 42 sooty, and 12 Manx shearwaters; 12 Wilson’s storm-petrels; 780 Northern gannets; two pomarine; 5 parasitic, and 14 unidentified jaegers; and one common murre.
►Barnstable: At Sandy Neck, storm-driven birds included one Leach’s storm-petrel and one red-necked phalarope.
►Newburyport: Reports from the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island last week included single-horned and red-necked grebes, one least bittern, one marbled godwit, 11 red knots, one little gull, three Caspian terns, two roseate terns, three Arctic terns, one Forster’s tern, and one gray-cheeked thrush.
►Hingham: Reported at Wompatuck State Park were one Acadian flycatcher and a total of 22 veeries, 41 ovenbirds, and five scarlet tanagers.
►Nantucket: A report from Tuckernuck Island included one king eider, one bar-tailed godwit, and two south polar skuas.
Miscellaneous reports last week included three Manx shearwaters near Revere Beach; one brown pelican in Gloucester; two yellow-crowned night-herons at Waquoit Bay in Falmouth; two olive-sided flycatchers in Westborough; one mourning warbler in East Boston; one dickcissel in South Dartmouth; and a yellow-headed blackbird on Shaw Road in Fairhaven. A marshbird survey at Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge last weekend documented three pied billed grebes, three least bitterns, 16 Virginia rails, three soras, one common gallinule, and one American coot.
