Weekly Bird Report Unknown

Mid-June is kind of like the slack tide in the Cape ornithological calendar. Songbird and shorebird migration are over, with most birds now busy breeding across the Northern Hemisphere.

We have a backlog of old business to attend to here at Bird Report central, namely, what’s going on with breeding birds right now? The answer is, they are battling for their lives and the lives of their children in this war zone we call the suburbs.

What’s lanky and lost and pink all over? It’s the American Flamingo that spent Sunday afternoon at Chapin Beach in Dennis. Only a lucky few got to see it, but this real, actual flamingo was indeed there. But how did it get there, and where did it come from?

It finally happened, for me anyway, on Friday morning. By “it,” I mean some clear evidence of newly arrived migrants of a number worthy of mid-to-late May.

We’re entering the home stretch of spring migration, but, here on the Cape, it still feels like a sputtering engine that can’t quite turn over.

Last week I predicted our first real migrant songbird fallout of May on Thursday morning. Sadly, that did not materialize, probably because of too much rain between us and the birds that night, stopping them short of New England.