Recent sightings (through Aug. 4) as reported to Mass Audubon.
At least 2 swallow-tailed kites continued along Route 28 in Cotuit and nearby areas.
The oddly friendly bridled tern that tried to land on the back of a birder at Race Point was next seen on Nantucket, then Martha’s Vineyard, where it perched on a yellow lab. It was last seen on someone’s deck railing in Duxbury.
Birds at Race Point included an Atlantic puffin, a Leach’s storm-petrel, a black guillemot, and an Iceland gull.
Birds seen during shorebird surveys at Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge included 11 American oystercatchers, 350 semipalmated plovers, 1,207 short-billed dowitchers, 61 willets, 136 ruddy turnstones, 4 stilt sandpipers, 2,400 sanderlings, 4 Western sandpipers, 5,180 semipalmated sandpipers, 1,200 laughing gulls, and 1,000 common terns.
Other sightings around the Cape included 2 blue grosbeaks at Crane WMA in Falmouth, 5 bobolinks in Mashpee, 3 black vultures in Bourne, 2 little blue herons and a marbled godwit at Forest Beach in Chatham, a little blue heron in Harwich, a merlin in Orleans, at least one chuck-will’s-widow continuing at Nauset Light Beach in Eastham, 4 Western sandpipers and 4 long-billed dowitchers in Nauset Marsh in Eastham, a dickcissel at Wellfleet Bay sanctuary, 2 least bitterns in North Truro, 2 American golden-plovers and a Western sandpiper at First Landing Park in Provincetown, and a Caspian tern on Stellwagen Bank.
If you have questions about these sightings, or want to report a sighting, call the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary at 508-349-2615 or send e-mail to cape.sightings@massaudubon.org.