SALUTING THIS YEAR’S CAPE COD VISITORS (9/06/02)

We on Cape Cod have become accustomed to celebrity visitors, and this summer was no exception.

Along with some movie stars and CEOs, we had some very prestigious birds. The first appeared during the spring “shoulder season” and admirers from all over the U.S. oohed and aahed at the sight of him. His name? Eurasian Kestrel. Never heard of him? Well, since this was only the second appearance in Massachusetts by one of his kind in many years, he wasn’t that well know to others either.

He was first spotted from the causeway to Morris Island in Chatham on Thursday, early April. His presence was reported immediately on the birders’ hot line, which is read by interested parties far beyond the borders of Massachusetts. I went to see him the next day, joining the throng that had already gathered. Before I could get out of my car, I knew he was present as all telescopes were trained in the same direction. And there he sat! Atop a small sand dune.

Apparently, he’d been flying around earlier but had not received a friendly reception from the local residents. An American Kestrel, a North American cousin of the European visitor, had made repeated threatening dives at him, and a Red-tailed Hawk usurped him from the roof of a nearby house. Let’s face it; the locals weren’t showing him any respect at all!

The birders, however, made up for it. For a weekday, the crowd was quite good sized, and by my 11 a.m. arrival, I learned that many others who’d been there had already left. And talk about the paparazzi! High-tech cameras were up and running from several vantage points. After chatting with old friends and making new acquaintances, I decided I, too, had better leave and get on with the chores awaiting me at home. Just after I turned around at the end of the causeway, I saw the birders sprinting toward me and looked out the passenger window to see the kestrel flying straight and strong right nearby. I got a wonderful view of him.

Saturday, of course, was the big day. I got calls from birders in Maryland and elsewhere asking whether I knew if the kestrel were still around. All I could tell them was last I knew, it still was. And stay around he did, for quite a few weeks! As the word spread across the country, birders arrived from all points, some by car, some by plane. This was truly an event in the birders’ world! Compare it to the Beatles’ deciding to hang out with the hoi polloi for a while in Chatham, willing to be photographed by any who came prepared and giving occasional performances.

The next star to grace our lands was not nearly as offbeat, although he was, nevertheless, a prominent visitor. “He” was a Sandhill Crane, most likely on his annual tour from Florida to perhaps Michigan when he’d perhaps been blown off course. He chose to make a long visit to a farm (yes! a real farm!) in Provincetown, where he hung out with the horses, dining on the grains and other tasty bits in a mulch pile. His 42” majestic presence and habit of running towards the horses with his wings outspread made his equine pasturemates very nervous.

A more recent stellar attraction was an Elegant Tern, a visitor from the West Coast, the first of its kind to arrive on our shores. He’s been hanging out with the local terns and gulls for some weeks now. Elegant Terns are somewhat similar to East Coast Royal Terns in that both sport wispy crests and orange bills; however the elegant’s bill is slimmer and a bit longer with the effect of a slight droop to it.

The final celeb, a Magnificent Frigatebird, came from at least as far away as the Florida Keys, or possibly from somewhere in the Caribbean. This large, mostly black, bird has long, narrow and angular wings with a spread 90 inches. These birds can soar for days with barely a wing beat, and it is said that they sleep on the wing. For the lucky birders who watched this bird “hang” for long periods of time in various spots around Chatham and points north of there, it certainly did appear to be sleeping.

We couldn’t help but speculate that he was the epitome of the accidental tourist, having fallen asleep in Florida only to awaken in Massachusetts!

Photo by Blair Nikula