Cape Cod Bird Sightings — Tuesday, September 22, 2026

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 September 16 and September 22, 2026.

The Crested Caracara continued at Duck Harbor in Wellfleet this week.

Birds at Race Point in Provincetown included 3 American Golden-Plovers, a Sabine’s Gull, a Long-tailed Jaeger, 12 Parasitic Jaegers, 6 Lesser Black-backed Gulls, 1800 Common Terns, 19 Cory’s Shearwaters, 42 Manx Shearwaters, 125 Northern Gannets, and 8 Common Ravens.

Birds in Nauset Marsh in Eastham included 600 Semipalmated Plovers, 16 Lesser Yellowlegs, 30 White-rumped Sandpipers, 2 Pectoral Sandpipers, a Long-billed Dowitcher, 10 Western Sandpipers, 2 Northern Harriers, a Merlin, a Peregrine Falcon, 4 Saltmarsh Sparrows, and 2 early Lapland Longspurs.

At the south end of Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge birds this week included 7 Blue-winged Teal, 12 Green-winged Teal, 9 Ruddy Ducks, 2 American Coot, 9 Pied-billed Grebes, 125 Lesser Black-backed Gulls, and 1500 Tree Swallows.

Sightings from Sandy Neck in Barnstable included 4 American Oystercatchers, 682 Black-bellied Plovers, 435 Semipalmated Plovers, 2 Piping Plovers, 11 Red Knots, 3 Western Sandpipers, 368 Semipalmated Sandpipers, 4 Parasitic Jaegers, 2 Lesser Black-backed Gulls, and 35 Forster’s Terns.

Other sightings around the Cape included 4 Caspian Terns in Chatham, a Black Vulture on the roof of the Birdwatcher’s General Store in Orleans, and 3 Yellow-bellied Flycatchers banded at Wellfleet Bay sanctuary.

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].