BREWSTER, Mass. — What the heck is a vermilion flycatcher doing in Massachusetts?
“It flew the wrong way,” Mark Faherty, science coordinator at the Mass Audubon Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, said by phone. “No one has ever seen one on Cape Cod.”
Faherty encountered the red-feathered wonder on Oct. 21 at Paines Creek Beach and was the first to report the stunning sighting. Although he is a leading bird authority on Cape Cod, Faherty is often occupied with science job stuff that reduces his time in the field. So, he sounded thrilled to have spotted the avian oddity.
“Usually, I’m writing about OPB (Other Peoples’ Birds), but not this time,” Faherty said. “My heart was going and I was thinking ‘must get photo.'”
According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, vermilion flycatchers “barely reach the southwestern U.S.,” but the “species is common all the way through Central America and much of South America.” Smaller numbers of the flycatchers spend winters along the Gulf Coast.
The birds nosh on insects, and often target wetlands, where the bug buffet is well stocked. The Brewster flycatcher has been eating crickets and caterpillars and has also shown fondness for a surf and turf approach, munching on little marine invertebrates known as amphipods, Faherty said
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Though it’s tricky to predict, Faherty said he thinks the bird, a young adult male, might stick around for a while. “It remains to be seen, but I don’t think it’s en route anywhere,” he said.
Birds can be more resilient than people think, and the Brewster flycatcher might be able to make a go of it as we move into the colder months, Faherty said. “As long as it can find insects,” he said. “I don’t think it would be able to deal with snow cover.”
Once he posted the sighting, Faherty said folks began flocking to the area to get a glimpse, including a birding group from western Massachusetts that happened to be on a Cape excursion.
It was the fourth recorded sighting of the bird in the state, and folks who keep a life list of birds they have encountered will be keen to lay eyes on the flycatcher, he said.
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Luckily, the red coloring makes the bird stand out, and according to Cornell, vermilion flycatchers have “a habit of sitting on exposed perches often within about 10 feet of the ground. This makes them fairly easy to spot in their open country habitat.”
The flycatcher has also been seen in the surrounding area ofPaines Creek Beach, according to Facebook postings.
So don’t be surprised if you see a caravan of birders headed toward Cape Cod. “It’s a big deal,” Faherty said, “and people are very excited about it.”
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