[MASSBIRD] Provincetown seabirds - 8/9

[Blair Nikula]

The superb seabird season on the outer Cape continues unabated. Although
there has been day to day - or even hour to hour - variation in both
location and timing, on even the slowest days shearwater counts into the
hundreds are routine, and on the best days, such as today, counts into
the many thousands have been the norm.

When I arrived at Race Point Beach at 5:40 this morning, shearwaters
were already streaming by, heading east as is usually the case (at least
early in the morning), and almost all were within 200-300 yards of
shore, affording great views. Within half an hour I had totaled (using
a hand counter clicking by tens) 7,000 shearwaters. The pace slowed
somewhat after that, but after an hour and 20 minutes I was up to about
9,500 birds. As has been the case all summer, the vast majority were
Cory's - the "default" shearwater these days. Highlights from this
morning's flight (0540 - 0700 hrs.; Cloudy; NE@10-20mph):

8700(!) Cory's Shearwaters
700 Great Shearwaters
70 Sooty Shearwaters
22 Manx Shearwaters
25 Wilson's Storm-Petrels
8 N. Gannets (4 ad.)
5 Parasitic Jaegers (1-2 ad.)
5 jaeger sp.
15 (only) Laughing Gulls (don't know where all the Laughing Gulls have
gone; there were many hundreds in P'town during the first half of the
summer, but they've become scarce the past couple of weeks. Kittiwakes
are also all but gone and only a handful of Bonaparte's Gulls are still
present.)
15 Roseate Terns (undoubtedly many more, but I didn't pay too much
attention to the terns passing)
1000 Common Terns

Full checklist at: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S24548562

Blair Nikula

--
2 Gilbert Lane
Harwich Port, MA 02646
http://www.odenews.org/
http://www.capecodbirds.org/

You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus - Mark Twain

[Paul Champlin]

Had 22 Kittiwakes sitting on the shore in front of Missionbell and more down to the east, and the shearwater show recommenced after 10AM, at an even more fevered pitch (Died by 12:30, with most birds sitting on the water).

Paul Champlin
Westport, MA

Sent from my iPhone

[Glenn d'Entremont]

I have not seen any postings, but the Plymouth Beach Tern/Gull colony has been abandoned due to fox and night-heron predation. This occurred between 7/20 and 7/23ish. My walk on 7/25 had NO birds flying into the colony and only 10 (!) Common Terns all day and 150 loafing Laughing Gulls. Least Terns and Piping Plovers were unaffected. Saturday going out on the Cap't John saw no concentration of gulls or terns on the beach. There were virtually no terns/gulls on the SW corner of Stellwagen Bank.

Does anyone else know the fate of other colonies?

Glenn

Glenn d'Entremont: gdentr...@comcast.net Stoughton, MA