The inevitable finally happened. Dr. James Riley’s ruby-throated hummingbird in Edgartown was last seen on Jan. 3, after about 48 hours of below freezing temperatures. The other two hummingbirds survived that cold snap but did not survive when winter came on with a vengeance last week, and we had several days where the temperatures stayed below 20 degrees. Joannie Ames’ West Tisbury ruby-throated hummingbird was last seen on Jan. 23, while the Allen’s hummingbird at Penny Uhlendorf’s and Scott Stephens’ in Vineyard Haven was last observed on Jan. 24.

Only 15 birding days left until the 53rd annual Martha’s Vineyard Christmas Bird Count! December 29 is Count Day, and we will have a lot of intrepid people divided into a dozen field teams, with each team scouring their assigned territory to count all the birds they can find. Our high counts are 134,963 individuals and 130 species, although in the past decade we have averaged around 50,000 birds and 120 different species.

For me, as the principal compiler for our count, this is the pinnacle of the birding year.

Why write about pinkletinks — also known as spring peepers everywhere but the Vineyard — at this time of the year? We are all preparing for winter by getting out our winter clothes, shutting storm windows and turning on the heat. Frogs cannot do those things, but they have other ways of surviving the winter.

After the spring chorus ends, the pinkletinks abandon the ponds and migrate to nearby uplands. There they establish territories that may be 18 feet in diameter.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac, which claims its forecasts are 80 per cent accurate, predicts that our winter weather will be colder and drier this year, with below normal snowfall. They predict it will be colder than normal in November and December, coldest from Christmas to early January, with another cold snap between early and mid-February. It will be snowiest in mid-December and again in mid-to-late February, and warmer than average from March to October.

There is a three-way tie for the bird of the week; sightings of not one but two Connecticut warblers, an American bittern and a buff-breasted sandpiper are all worthy, although they are somewhat expected at this time of the year.

It is a spectacular feeling to be in the midst of a large flock of thousands of tree swallows! The birds are flying gracefully around you, making aerial acrobatics to snatch bugs out of the air. They can fly so close to you that you can hear their wings beating the air.