Cape Cod Bird Sightings — Tuesday, August 12, 2025

Cape Cod Weekly Wildlife Sightings is sponsored by the Bird Watchers General Store in Orleans and Mass Audubon's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. The following sightings were reported between August 6 and August 12, 2025.

A Rufous Hummingbird was banded at Wing Island in Brewster this week, a rare summer record for the eastern US for this species of the mountain west.

A Mississippi Kite and a Swallow-tailed Kite were seen in Sandwich at different times over the last week.

A Black-headed Gull and an Atlantic Puffin were seen at Race Point in Provincetown, where other sightings this week included 2 Royal Terns, 2 Arctic Terns, a Black Tern, 230 Wilson’s Storm-Petrels, 75 Cory’s Shearwaters, 6 Great Shearwaters, 5 Manx Shearwaters,

Surveys of Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge tallied 5 Northern Pintail, 63 American Oystercatchers, 1900 Semipalmated Plovers, 64 Piping Plovers, 5 Whimbrel, 1400 Short-billed Dowitchers, 10 Hudsonian Godwits, 50 Willets, 75 Red Knots, 960 Sanderlings, 55 White-rumped Sandpipers, 2450 Semipalmated Sandpipers, and 2 Black Skimmers.

Other sightings around the Cape included a Blue Grosbeak in Falmouth, a Little Blue Heron in Harwich, a Blue-winged Warbler in Brewster, a Black Skimmer and a Hudsonian Godwit at Nauset Beach in Chatham, a Royal Tern and a Western Sandpiper elsewhere in Chatham,  at least one endlessly continuing Chuck-Will’s-widow plus a new Pied-billed Grebe in Eastham, 2 Royal Terns and 17 Whimbrels at Wellfleet Bay sanctuary, and 2 Barolo Shearwaters well offshore during seabird surveys at George’s 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 [email protected]