The boys are back in town, or are they the girls? A much awaited event for bird watchers has begun. The shorebirds have started migrating from their nesting sites in the tundra. On Friday, July 10, a group of birders were scoping the sand flats of Chilmark and Tisbury Great Ponds and were delighted to see a good selection of shorebirds.

Rainy weather — ah, let me see — a good book and a comfy couch are my tickets to staying dry and passing the time. But what do birds do? They also seek shelter but instead of a house they use leaves of shrubs, bushes and trees as a roof. If there are none of these available, unlike humans, they stay warm and relatively dry without shelter. The feathers of birds have developed rain shedding feathers through the evolutionary process. I watched a blue jay sitting peacefully in the pouring rain the other day. Once in a while he would shake off the rain drops that were resting on his feathers, but otherwise he seemed quite content. When the rain stopped, the blue jay fluffed up his feathers and dried them out in the sunshine. No electric hairdryer necessary as most of the moisture had been shed.

It is a challenge to type when you are offshore on a bouncy vessel in a series of line squalls! However, when weather breaks we find we are in good company. Wilson’s storm petrels and an occasional common loon are the most common birds we spot. Pods of dolphins, probably bottle-nosed, play in our bow wake for a while and then veer off to feed or find a new toy. Closer to shore we are joined by laughing, herring and black-backed gulls and common and least terns. A more familiar group of feathered friends are our companions as we near home.

June can be a slow time for bird watchers, but a great time to do some behavioral observations. Our local migratory bird species are back on Island. These birds, large and small, have found a mate, designed their nests, and settled in to raise their families. If conditions are ideal, they may raise more than one brood a summer.

Ellen, aka Lefty, Leverenz e-mailed me and attached two photos of downy woodpeckers that she had seen at her Chilmark feeders. She did so because the bellies of the birds visiting her feeders were not that lovely stark white we normally expect on these little woodpeckers. Instead the bellies of these birds were a dirty tannish color. Several days later I visited Larry Hepler and Alice Early at their Quansoo home and they mentioned that they had some dirty-bellied birds as well. I was able to see an Early-Hepler woodpecker and it had the usual black and white back but a decidedly tan belly.