Once upon a time a small finch known as a linnet lived in the United States west of the Rocky Mountains. There were a group of sleazy pet dealers in California that went out and captured many of these linnets. These caged wild birds were shipped to New York to be sold in pet stores as “Hollywood finches.” This was totally illegal as the linnets, we know them as house finches, are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

The Vineyard’s woodlands are beginning to undergo that fall change. The oaks are slowly turning a yellow-brown and dropping their leaves. The roads are covered with acorns, as this season has produced a bumper crop. There are many deer tracks amongst the acorns, for the white-tailed deer adores acorns. I discovered another creature that loves the nuts of the oaks, common grackles!

Grin, sharpie, modo, rump, red nut, limey and bobo — what kind of gibberish is that? No, it is not baby talk or profanity, but nicknames that bird watchers have for certain species. Grin for the majestic peregrine falcon, sharpie for the sharp-shinned hawk, modo for the mourning dove, rump for the yellow-rumped warbler, red nut for red-breasted nuthatch, limey for English or house sparrow and bobo for bobolinks.

The Vineyard’s familiar terns have left and headed south. The smallest, the least tern, is the first to go in early September. The common and roseate follow later in the month. Their cousins the black terns usually are around into late September but the Forster’s terns are the Vineyard’s terns of the fall and early winter.

“I’m seeing a weird warbler, it looks kind of like a chickadee” said Flip Harrington. That was the beginning of an exciting morning at the Gay Head Cliffs in Aquinnah. The bird was identified by the two birders who have spent time in western United States, Lanny McDowell and Pete Gilmore. The mystery bird was a black-throated gray warbler. This was a life bird for me, Flip and Pete Lenkowski, which means in birding jargon, that we had never seen the bird before anywhere.