What is going on? This week I’ve received reports of spring migrants arriving on the Island well ahead of schedule. It is amazing after a relatively harsh winter. I hate to mention global warming, but it seems the movement of birds, flowering of plants, hatching of insects and frog choruses are starting earlier.

Lanny McDowell and Warren Woessner observed an American golden plover on the shores of Tisbury Great Pond on April 5. The earliest this elegant plover had been seen in the past was the third of May! We don’t normally see America golden plovers because they spend their winters in Peru, Brazil and Argentina, then move north and breed in the tundra. Their migratory route is up the center of the country through the Great Plains. Unlike their cousins, the black-bellied plovers that are seen on-Island year-round, the American plovers prefer fields to beaches. We usually see the golden plovers in the Farm Institute fields during the fall months.

Sarah Saltonstall watched a pair of scarlet tanagers in the woods near her house on Old South Road in Aquinnah on April 2, beating her old record of April 17 and the Island record of April 15. It is hard to distinguish between migrants and summer residents. If Sarah continues to see “her” pair, they are here for the duration. Otherwise they are on their way further north and may have arrived early as the result of a spring gale. It will be interesting to hear whether the Old South Road pair stays the summer.

Bert Fischer and Thaw Malin shared a Baltimore oriole off Moshup Trail on April 6. Bert heard the oriole singing near his house in the morning and later in the day Thaw spotted the electric orange oriole in an oak tree near his driveway. Baltimore orioles are traditionally a bird that arrives on the Vineyard in May. The orioles and the tanagers are susceptible to the whims of spring storms, so again it will be interesting if the Baltimore orioles continue to hang out in the Aquinnah area where they were first heard and seen.

Warren Woessner on April 4 was scoping from Bluefish Point over to Norton Point when he picked up a large long-legged shorebird. He is almost positive it was a willet. Again this breaks the old record of April 19. Willets have bred on the Vineyard since 1990 but prior to that hadn’t since the 1800s, when they were either hunted out or their eggs taken for collections or food.

On the other hand, I received reports from several Island locations about the return of tree swallows. My records show that the early arrival of these insect-eating flying machines is mid-March, although most don’t hit the Island until early April. The first report of tree swallows was from the Aquinnah team of Bert Fischer and Thaw Malin. Bert spotted four over Squibnocket Pond on April 2 and Thaw watched six swooping and diving over Greenhouse Road, Aquinnah the same day. Lanny McDowell caught sight of tree swallows over the Mill Pond in West Tisbury on April 3, while Rob Culbert counted three tree swallows at the headquarters of the state forest the same day.

Janet Norton had a visit from a cattle egret at Sweetened Water Farm in Edgartown on April 1 and, as she noted, this is not an April Fool’s joke. Although we have reports of cattle egrets from every month, save January, most Vineyard records of this egret are from the middle of April. There are no nesting records for this egret on the Island and few in Massachusetts.

Birds are arriving in fits and starts. Get those hummingbird feeders up and the oranges out and call or e-mail your sightings to the bird phone hotline 508-627-4922 or birds@mvgazette.com

Bird Sightings

Lynne Silva watched an osprey fly over headed north on the West Tisbury/Chilmark town line on South Road on March 30.

On March 31, Bart Smith reported that the osprey nest at Mohu has both male and female in residence. That same day, Dick Jennings and Sarah Trudel of The Trustees of Reservations found a dead thick-billed murre on Wasque. This winter visitor can be seen offshore in small numbers.

Bert Fischer watched a great egret stalking prey at Quitsa on April 1. Dona Honig was surprised to see a ring-necked pheasant at her feeder instead of in the fields of Katama next to her house.

Dale Carter of Chappaquiddick has counted more American goldfinches at her feeder than black-capped chickadees. She also has an orange variant house finch and both Ipswich and Savannah sparrows around her feeders. Bob Green and Linda DeWitt had a visit to their pond off the Takemmy Trail from an ailing great cormorant. Unfortunately the bird didn’t survive.

Rob Culbert counted 50 double-crested cormorants on their nesting sites at Sarson’s Island.

Janet Norton’s pond in Edgartown received a visit from a wood duck on April 1, while over at Chappaquiddick on a pond on Pimpneymouse Farm, the Potters counted three wood ducks.,the first, Edo Potter noted, in years.

Luanne Johnson bumped two Wilson’s snipe from a puddle in the road on the way to Dogfish Bar in Aquinnah on April 3. At her feeders in West Tisbury she had visits from a white-crowned sparrow and a ruby-crowned kinglet. Lanny McDowell found eastern (rufous-sided) towhees and eastern phoebes at Great Rock Bight the same day.

Cookie and Alfred Perry saw their first American oystercatcher of the season on Eel Pond on April 2.

On April 5, Martha Moore reported that the male osprey on the Long Point pole was joined by a female. On the beach Lanny McDowell and Warren Woessner counted six piping plovers and four American oystercatchers. They also watched a pair of northern harriers over the parking lot at Quansoo.  

Finally, I received the following e-mail from Doc Engles:

“On the afternoon of April 6, the R.M. Packer Company tug Thuban was returning from Nantucket to Martha’s Vineyard when three northern flickers landed on the tank barge we were pushing. The three flickers rested on a coil of rope from Norton Shoal, Nantucket Sound, to East Chop, where they took off and flew toward East Chop light. It was fun to feel that we had helped in their migration.”