By now, anyone who has listened to a weather report in the last couple of weeks knows that since December this has been one of the warmest winters on record. Tuesday was technically the first day of spring, but it seems that here on the Island, spring began to arrive about two to three weeks ago. The painted turtles in my pond thought so. The first ones emerged on March 15, which is nearly three weeks earlier than at any time since 2004. And on March 19 a cabbage white butterfly was at Tisbury Meadow. While this species first emerged on the mainland in warm weather a couple of weeks ago, this is one of the earliest appearances known for Martha’s Vineyard.

Though Vineyard harbors are empty of most boats, and the North Wharf boat lift is quiet, George J. Rogers Jr. and his wife Sheryl, owners of Edgartown Marine, have been working through the winter, morning until night.

The Winter That Wasn’t is merging into a spring whose nature has yet to be revealed and birds, accordingly, are in motion. Most notably, common grackles and red-winged blackbirds have landed on the Island, raucous males (as always) leading the charge but with the first females of both species arriving over the past week. Meanwhile, more species and more individuals are lending their voices to the morning chorus, with cardinals, Eastern bluebirds, American robins, and brown creepers singing this week at multiple locations. Every day brings change.

Todd McGrain, artist, advocate and film maker, never wants us to forget the species that we have lost. His film, The Lost Bird Project, which screens this weekend at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival, memorializes five birds that are gone forever.