See our Meetings page for more information about the topic and speaker.
Doors open at 6:30pm so you may mingle with other members and the Board, enjoy refreshments, and pick up information.
Check out our Walks page for upcoming bird walks led by club members, which are held throughout the year.
To access the complete list of current walks, please go to the Walks Page to view/download the PDF file. Be sure to review our field trip guidelines.
Cornell has a real-time map that shows Spring and Fall migration, and is used to predict where the concentrations will be. Click the map to be taken to https://birdcast.info/.
Starting August 1st, the BirdCast Migration Maps forecasting resumes.
BirdCast Live Migration Maps
How to Use
You can choose to get alerts for your area, e.g. Barnstable County.
Other resources:
Journey North has various bird and non-bird migration maps.
If you need to brush up on your warbler id skills TheWarblerGuide.com has various guides, visual, audio, free downloads from princeton.edu.
The Cornell Lab’s Project FeederWatch is a November-April survey of birds that visit backyards, nature centers, community areas, and other locales in North America. You don’t even need a feeder! All you need is an area with plantings, habitat, water, or food that attracts birds. The schedule is completely flexible. Count your birds for as long as you like on days of your choosing, then enter your counts online. Your counts allow you to track what is happening to birds around your home and to contribute to a continental data-set of bird distribution and abundance.
(text taken from https://feederwatch.org/about/)
For more information, go to the FeederWatch site.
Congratulations to Megan Morey, a student at Cape Cod Academy, for being awarded the CCBC scholarship to attend the 2023 Hog Island Mountains to Sea Birding for Teens Camp. Megan attended the Camp in August and will be writing an article for an upcoming newsletter, as well as making a presentation to the Club at the December meeting. We are looking forward to hearing about her Hog Island experience.
Do birds have a sense of smell?
Raptor specialist Norman Smith of Mass Audubon Blue Hills gives us some interesting new insight in this short 4-minute video:
https://www.wgbh.org/news/news/2021/11/10/do-birds-have-a-sense-of-smell
From WGBH.org
The Cape Cod Bird Club has received a mention in the Birding Community E-Bulletin of the National Wildlife Refuge Association under PROMOTE A POSITIVE PROJECT for our Conservation & Education projects. Visit the publication archives and read the May 2021 Birding Community E-bulletin.
Free online course and resources for beginning birdwatchers
Spark Birding is offering a free program to encourage more people to explore birdwatching as a hobby and to learn the basics. The program is tailored to the New England region and includes a free online course, Birding Essentials for New England, that covers bird behavior, essential gear, the most common birds here, and how to identify birds. For more information or to signup, visit sparkbirding.com/getstarted.
by Dr. Drew Lanham
Zoom talk given at the Hoffmann Bird Club of Berkshire County, MA on 2/1/21.
Link to YouTube video: https://youtu.be/nhPVR5zODOI
Dr. J. Drew Lanham is a writer, birder, hunter, and naturalist wandering on the edge of the Blue Ridge in the Upper Piedmont of South Carolina. Lanham considers “conserving birds and their habitat a moral mission that needs the broadest and most diverse audience possible to be successful.” He is a Clemson University Master Teacher and Alumni Distinguished Professor in wildlife ecology, with research interests in songbird ecology and conservation; integration of game and nongame wildlife management; the African American land ethic and its role in natural resources conservation.
Dr. J. Drew Lanham an Alumni Distinguished Professor and Master Teacher of Wildlife Ecology at Clemson University. He is a cultural and conservation ornithologist whose work addresses the confluence of race, place and nature. Drew is the Poet Laureate of Edgefield County, SC and the author of Sparrow Envy: Poems, Sparrow Envy: A Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts, and The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature. The Home Place was winner of the Reed Environmental Writing Award, the Southern Book Prize, and was a 2017 finalist for the Burroughs Medal. The Home Place was most recently named the scholarly book of the decade by Lithub and the Chronicle of Higher Education. Drew’s creative work and opinion appears in Orion, Vanity Fair, Oxford American, High Country News, Bitter Southerner, Terrain, Places Journal, Literary Hub, Newsweek, Slate, NPR, Story Corps, Threshold Podcast, Audubon, Sierra Magazine, This is Love Podcast, and The New York Times. He is a Contributing Editor for Orion Magazine, and a lifelong bird watcher and hunter/conservationist living in Seneca, SC.
The first sign of a nesting Common Loon has been found in Fall River! They’ve been gone from this area since 1925. See this great article on recovery efforts:
What happens when you test Harvard students against an African Grey Parrot? https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/african-grey-parrot-outperforms-children-and-college-students/
Paper published in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology (2017) 129(2): 331-344, by Martin Nyffeler, Michael R. Maxwell, and J. V. Remsen, Jr.
A review of 147 incidents of the capture of small birds by mantids.
Link: Bird Predation by Praying Mantises: a Global Perspective
Information for those unfamiliar with using Zoom – here is a tutorial and a test that may help.
Updated 6/2/2020 (scroll to bottom)
In the Winter 2019 Kingfisher, Herb Raffaele described our plans to support conservation and education. In particular, we requested proposals from the four Caribbean-based NGOs described in that article. We received proposals from three of them, and we decided to fund two of these organizations.
Each grant is for $1,000. As these projects start to produce results, we will bring you reports of their progress.
Puerto Rico Ornithological Society (SOPI)
SOPI will design and print bird identification guides and informational booklets aimed at various natural resource user constituencies that are not usually known for participating in bird-watching activities in Puerto Rico (e.g., recreational anglers).
Environmental Awareness Group of Antigua & Barbuda (EAG).
EAG will conduct classroom and field training sessions aimed at producing a cadre of local citizen scientists, who are able to identify and monitor birds in three wetlands designated as Important Bird Areas (IBAs). Not only will the project produce valuable data, but also the participants will gain an appreciation for the value of wetland ecosystems.
See the Winter 2020 Kingfisher (page 5) for additional details.
Learn about the leader of the Antigua/Barbuda initiative:
(link to YouTube is here if your device doesn’t show the video)
On June 1, 2020, this project was completed with some amazing results. Even during this time of Covid-19, they were able to train 35 participants through all 6 courses using web-based training! They were able to conduct their Field training prior to the pandemic. And they have already started contributing to citizen science via eBird. See their final report for a complete description of their project.
From Mass Audubon:
American Kestrels, Barn Swallows, and Cliff Swallows are all declining in Massachusetts, like many other open-country birds. The Bird Conservation team is initiating two exciting studies on these species during this spring and summer, and data from the community will be integral to both studies’ success!
What we hope to accomplish with your help
The purpose of the swallow project is straightforward: we want to identify sites where Barn and Cliff Swallows are nesting that may not yet be known to biologists.
Mass Audubon’s work on the kestrel project on the other hand, will be a little more involved. After compiling a list of remaining nest sites, the Bird Conservation Department will team up with state biologists in 2021 to fit kestrels with radio tags. These tags will track their movements around the region after nesting, and eventually to their wintering grounds.
As always, all nest data is kept strictly within the community of biologists working to conserve these species.
For more information, check out our full blog post here or contact Jon Atwood, director of bird conservation (jatwood@massaudubon.org).
Shawn Carey spoke to the Cape Cod Bird Club about Tanzania in November 2018. Shawn has posted about his Tanzania photo safaris at Migration Productions.
There are three separate articles documenting his Tanzania trips in 2017 and 2019.
Active members of the Cape Cod Bird Club are now eligible for a 28% discount off of The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s “Birds of North America” online birding reference. Click here for more information.
For those involved in, or interested in following, there is a web page for the Cape Cod Osprey Watch at http://www.osprey-watch.org/monitoring_groups/32.
How to support bird conservation efforts at the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife (MassWildlife).
Submit nesting season observations of state listed birds into the Vernal Pools and Rare Species (VPRS) database (https://www.mass.gov/service-details/vernal-pool-rare-species-vprs-information-system). It is cumbersome to register, but is the only way to enter these important records.
Serve as a volunteer monitor at specific nests. This is done for eagles, peregrines, and kestrels.
Report observations of loons on the Assawompsett Pond Complex and surrounding lakes.
Utilize the Wildlife Management Areas that are all owned by MassWildlife. Having clubs lead walks on these properties is helpful.
The CCBC was the recipient of a generous $5,000 grant in memory of Ned Handy, former Vice President and long-time and very loyal supporter of the CCBC. This grant will allow us to implement some new initiatives in bird conservation and education as described in the following paragraph.
Share your love of birding with the next generation – tips from Audubon:
https://www.audubon.org/news/birdist-rule-7-take-kid-birding
Each Wednesday, at 8:45am and 5:45pm, Mark Faherty gives the “Weekly Bird Report” on WCAI-FM. If you miss it at those times, you can listen to podcasts of past airings on their site, subscribe in iTunes, or search for “Weekly Bird Report” in your favorite podcast app.
Bald eagles have been spotted at Mashpee-Wakeby Pond on the Upper Cape for several years. Are they nesting? The MA Division of Fisheries & Wildlife would like to find out. According to the State, the last known eagle nest on Cape Cod was in 1905 on Snake Pond in Sandwich, so the location and documentation of a nest on the Cape would be quite notable! The State is interested in receiving information about adult eagle sightings and, in particular, possible nest locations in the area. If they are able to locate a nest based on an observer report, they typically try their best to get that person out with them for an eagle banding trip and allow them to hold an eagle chick while it is being banded! Have information? Please contact Jason Zimmer with MADFW: jason.zimmer@state.ma.us.
In addition to joining the club via US Mail, you may now join or renew online with either a PayPal account or credit card. The checkout process is done with PayPal, but you do not have to have a PayPal account to use it. The club has no access to your credit card information, and no credit card information is stored on the club’s website.
Go to Join Online from either the menu above (Join –> Join Online), or clicking here.
Please take the time to help our grassland birds via The Bobolink Project! Check out what it’s all about at their website and like them on Facebook!
Dear Cape Cod Bird Club members,
I am writing in the hopes that you might be able to help promote a new regional conservation initiative that helps protect grassland nesting birds and local farmers. The Bobolink Project finances bird-friendly mowing by linking conservation-minded donors to conservation-minded farmers.
Grassland birds like Bobolinks are facing hard times. Hay farmers who delay their harvests long enough to allow Bobolinks to successfully nest will lose money. The Bobolink Project collects donations from conservationists and distributes those funds to cooperating farmers, allowing the farmers to delay their cuts and thus “buy” the precious few weeks these birds need to complete their nesting cycle.
Time is running out for this season (2016). Our deadline to receive donations and identify cooperating farmers this year is April 22.
I wondered if you wouldn’t mind sharing the link at meetings to help promote the project? http://www.bobolinkproject.com/. Additionally, you can follow us on facebook
Please feel free to contact me if you would like further information.
Kind regards,
Jonathan L. Atwood, Ph.D.
Massachusetts State Coordinator-The Bobolink Project
Mass Audubon
208 South Great Road
Lincoln, MA 01773
thebobolinkproject@massaudubon.org
Support the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program!
A critical part of the funding equation for the MA Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program are your voluntary contributions on your Massachusetts state income tax form. If you care about the future of our wildlife and wild places here in Massachusetts, please contribute.
For more information about how you can help, click here.
The Museum of American Bird Art at Mass Audubon (MABA) is a professional art museum within New England’s largest conservation organization, connecting people and nature through art. It is located at 963 Washington Street, Canton, MA 02021
Check the museum’s website for current and ongoing exhibits.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/01/02/birding-sport-big-year-citizen-science/4261529/