Great excitement on Norton Point and also on Chappaquiddick!

The Vineyard is a huge maternity ward for birds at this time of year.

Well, it seems to me that shorebird migration is early. I have always considered July 4 the date for the beginning of the movement of sandpipers, plovers, dowitchers, knots and the like as they head south for their winter haunts. But the shorebirds came through the Vineyard earlier, their young have hatched earlier (and now are on their own), so why not head south earlier?

Three southern species which are now seen on the Vineyard are making news this week.

All of us have been impressed by the birds that have shown up at the old jetties at Harthaven this spring. The latest highlight is Alex Greene’s royal tern on June 8. This species now occurs regularly on the Vineyard in the late summer, but it is unusual in the spring. Another unusual spring tern is the black tern that Pete Gilmore found there on May 30, when he was searching for the sandwich tern that Alex had seen.

An entertaining e-mail from Bob St. Germain reminded me that it is that time of year again. I must give my annual lecture on the importance of keeping a distance from bird nests and also slowing down on the roads. Birds passing across the Vineyard roads are undoubtedly carrying food for young at this time of year. If you hit one, then the nestlings or fledglings will have difficulty surviving.