The birding community welcomes home bird photographer Lanny McDowell! And speaking of the birding community, it is always fun to put 25 birders in one house and listen to the conversations. What follows is a sampler:

• “You heard a whippoorwill. I am envious, I haven’t heard one in years. Remember when you used to bump them off the dirt roads when you drove them at night? The darned feral cats, skunks and raccoons eat their eggs — easy prey as their nests are on the ground.”

• “Bobwhites have been seen at Seven Gates, Menemsha Hills and Priscilla Hancock Preserve recently. The bummer is in each case it was only two birds! Remember when you used to hear them in every field and see coveys of a dozen or more in the fall.”

• “It is great to see so many hummingbirds and the excitement people have watching them come to their feeders. Yes, but I worry that people don’t change the water enough or clean the feeders weekly especially in hot weather. Some people are using three parts water to one part sugar to make the nectar for their feeders. I read that four parts water to one part sugar is the closest to flower nectar.”

• “We complain that there are fewer warblers than there used to be, but look at the number of chipping sparrows we have now. That used to be a hard sparrow to find.”

• “Boy if the coyotes are really here to stay it will raise havoc with many of our bird species. The farmers raising chickens, turkeys and ducks are not going to be happy campers either. Coyotes are wily hunters!”

• “Can you believe it, there is a record number of ospreys nesting on the Vineyard this summer. How about that pair that is nesting on the dunes on Chappaquiddick? Weird!”

• “Remember when there were no cardinals or mockingbirds on the Vineyard? Yah, how about when there were short-eared owls and rough-legged hawks. Amazing how things change! Yup, there were never nesting turkey vultures or Cooper’s hawks either. Some people say we don’t have American kestrels nesting here anymore because the Cooper’s hawks kill kestrels. How about that great horned owl that killed the osprey last summer on Chappy? The same old story, survival of the fittest!”

Bird Sightings

The award for the strangest sighting goes to Dick Jennings and Susan Geresy who saw and photographed a pair of ospreys that have chosen a dune on East Beach on Chappaquiddick on which to construct a makeshift nest and lay their eggs. Ospreys have nested on the ground in other places, but never on the Vineyard. Penelope, the tagged Vineyard osprey, is presently off Route 95 in New Jersey, just south of Newark. She may be home by the time this is printed.

Bobwhites have been seen in the Menemsha Hills (by Allan Keith) May 15, and Martha and Chuck Schmidt spotted a pair at Seven Gates Farm on May 23. Eleanor Waldron and Barbara Pesch watched a pair run down the road in front of them at Priscilla Hancock Preserve in Chilmark on May 24.

Luanne Johnson counted 13 late-staying purple sandpipers on Moshup Trail in Aquinnah on May 22.

Whippoorwills were heard and seen by William Marks near the Martha’s Vineyard Airport on May 21, at Quansoo by Larry Hepler on May 15 and on Middle Road by Donald Nitchie and around Tea Lane by Thaw Malin this week.

Warren Woessner checked out Norton Point on May 22 and in the tern colony spotted two black skimmers. He also had a small flock of ruddy turnstones, a semipalmated sandpiper and three willets. On May 23 Warren spotted the American golden plover at Katama and on May 24 spotted a red knot and a black-crowned night heron. I joined Warren on May 26 and we counted four red knots, the black skimmers, a long-tailed duck, the American golden plover, a piping plover and a huge colony of least terns with common and roseates mixed in. Could be the largest least tern colony in Massachusetts at this rate.

A group of birders joined me at Great Rock Bight on May 22. The best birds were the breeding warblers including an ovenbird, American redstart, yellow warbler and common yellowthroat. We also watched some interesting breeding behavior of the eastern towhee.

On May 23 Porter Turnbull joined me and Flip Harrington at Waskosim’s Rock. We had excellent views of a male scarlet tanager, hairy woodpecker and blue-winged warbler. We also heard a mystery warbler that might have been a blackpoll.

R.W. Price had a solitary sandpiper on Sengekontacket on May 16 and 17. He also spotted two greater yellowlegs on May 15. Peter Enrich had a chestnut-sided warbler on May 15 on Tea Lane and the following day a scarlet tanager and ovenbird. Peter and others have been seeing crested flycatchers. Nat Woodruff photographed a pair by her Tisbury home and Doc Engles watched one gathering nesting material by his home in Tisbury.

Phillip Hunziker spotted an orchard oriole at Felix Neck on May 24. Burt Peterson heard a blue-winged warbler, or one of its hybrids, at the end of Flanders Lane in Chilmark on May 25. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to find the bird for an exact identification.

Please report your bird sightings to the Martha’s Vineyard Bird Hotline at 508-627-4922 or e-mail birds@mvgazette.com.

Susan B. Whiting is the coauthor of Vineyard Birds and Vineyard Birds II. Her web site is vineyardbirds2.com.