Recent bird sightings as reported to the Massachusetts Audubon Society:
Last week was awash with spring rarities: a brown pelican was spotted on Monomoy Island off Chatham, a lark sparrow at Hine’s Bridge in North Brookfield, a yellow-headed blackbird on private property on Plum Island and at feeders on Nantucket, a yellow-breasted chat at the Nahant Thicket Wildlife Sanctuary, a Kentucky warbler at Greenlawn Cemetery in Salem, and a painted bunting in the Pond Village neighborhood of North Truro. Winter finches are persisting long after their usual departures, particularly evening grosbeaks — five were seen at Wompatuck State Park in Hingham and another in Marblehead. Red crossbills were observed at Moose Hill in Sharon and Marblehead Neck, and pine siskins were spotted in Westwood and Brewster.
Cambridge: At Mount Auburn Cemetery, highlights included a roosting common nighthawk, a yellow-billed cuckoo, a white-eyed vireo, a yellow-throated vireo, a worm-eating warbler, an orange-crowned warbler, a hooded warbler, a cerulean warbler, two Canada warblers, a bay-breasted warbler, and four Cape May warblers among 23 species of warbler.
Plum Island: Birders saw two great cormorants, eight pectoral sandpipers, two purple sandpipers, 11 Eastern whip-poor-wills, a white-eyed vireo, 39 black-and-white warblers, a worm-eating warbler, five Nashville warblers, 11 magnolia warblers, a bay-breasted warbler, 25 American redstarts, five Wilson’s warblers, and four orchard orioles.
Nantucket: There was a bufflehead at the Masquetuck Reservation, a chuck-will’s-widow in Sesachacha, an American coot downtown, a sandhill crane at the Siasconset Golf Course, a yellow-headed blackbird, a Kentucky warbler on Polpis Road, and a summer tanager on Madaket Road.
Miscellaneous: A gadwall was spotted at Bolton Flats, and a black guillemot was seen off Jerusalem Road in Cohasset. There was an Iceland gull in Westport. A black tern was seen at Great Meadows in Concord, and there was an alder flycatcher at the Stony Brook Wildlife Sanctuary in Norfolk. A willow flycatcher was seen at Millennium Park in West Roxbury, a fox sparrow was spotted at the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary, and a worm-eating warbler was obeserved at the Heald Street Orchard in Pepperell.