On Jan. 21, during the snowstorm with about one and one-half inches of snow already on the ground, Lanny McDowell spotted an ovenbird as he was looking out a window from his house near Lake Tashmoo. It was about five feet below him, hopping on the snow. He went outside and briefly saw it again, flying weakly into an evergreen hedgerow.

There has been a collection of 1960s songs going through my head, so when Wendy Weldon called to say she and James Langlois had found a stranded bird, could I come and tell them what it was and what to do with it, my mind snapped and starting playing Jim Dandy to the Rescue.

This is the season not of the witch but the razorbill. They have been seen from every side of the Vineyard and Chappaquiddick. Unlike their cousins the puffins, dovekies, murres, guillemots, murrelets and auklets that remain offshore except to breed, the razorbills will come into harbors, bays and estuaries that are less salty than the ocean to feed. Razorbills will also enjoy a bit of R& R on a breakwater in the sun. The waters around the Vineyard are full of sand lances (sand eels) and still even mackerel, and where there are fish there are razorbills.

The 112th annual Christmas Bird Count has been completed nationwide. The Vineyard started participating in the count years later, so conducted its 52nd annual CBC on Jan. 2.

Hear ye, hear ye! Do not forget that the Vineyard’s Christmas Bird Count will take place on Monday, Jan. 2, from dawn to dusk, rain or shine. Vineyard birders will join tens of thousands of volunteers who are taking part in the oldest and largest demonstration of crowd science in the world. This count is in its 112th year so the data that has been gathered over the years has shown the world the changes in the environment and bird populations.