Warren Woessner, a self-described Renaissance man, is a poet, a chemist, a lawyer, and an active blogger. But on the Island, Mr. Woessner, 68, is primarily a “birdwatcher.” The term is, technically, outdated, he says, since bird enthusiasts began trying to distinguish themselves from the “little old ladies in their tennis shoes,” by referring to themselves as birders. Birding, which once meant hunting birds, now refers almost exclusively to the hobby of seeking the company of rare birds.

Mr. Woessner would know. He is, by one measurement, the fifth-most avid birder in Massachusetts. On the American Birding Association’s area list of bird totals for North America, he had the fifth highest count in the state. His lifelist counts 738 different species.

Mr. Woessner first came to the Island in 1981, after passing the bar exam in New York. A friend from high school had a house here, and he immediately identified it as an affordable destination for relaxation and birding, a hobby he’d pursued since 1970.

Mr. Woessner credits his settling on a summer residence on the Island in part to his wife being “the only person in Minnesota who doesn’t like Florida.” Before he vacationed regularly on the Island, Mr. Woessner spent time in Sanibel Island, Florida. The J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge in Sanibel is famous for attracting large numbers of migratory birds. Similarly, the Island is also a hub of migratory bird activity.

But while Sanibel Island, with its tropical climate, is often a destination for birds, most of them end up on the Vineyard by accident, Mr. Woessner said. “Most of them are blown off-course,” he said. “So that warbler you were chasing didn’t actually want to be here.” But that doesn’t prevent avid Island birders from seeking them out at all hours of the day, in the cruelest of winter weather. Even Hurricane Irene last year didn’t prevent five or six Island birders from going out and seeking two unusual terns, according to the bird column published that week in this paper. Mr. Woessner might have been one of them, had he not already returned to Minnesota. But thanks to social media, he heard about it, and part of him wished he was on-Island.

He felt similarly a month ago, when the Martha’s Vineyard Bird Alert Facebook group posted that the Vineyard was being visited by a rare, red-footed falcon, and Mr. Woessner’s scheduled flight to the Island was still a week away. Back in the day, he wouldn’t have hesitated to hop on a plane and travel the country to see a bird on a whim. But now he’s more sensible, he admits. In the past, his birding took him to Costa Rica, Panama, Mexico and the Bahamas, and on a big car trip from Wisconsin to the Everglades.

Mr. Woessner’s birding lifelist. — Ivy Ashe

The Facebook group was founded by Lanny McDowell, a well-known Island birder and avian photographer. On any day, the message posted on the wall of the group might read something like, “A whimbrel has been spotted at Felix Neck,” signaling birders from across the Island to scramble to the wildlife sanctuary. It’s a useful resource for birding collaborators, but it doesn’t promise to have all the answers. As the information section of the group page warns, “questions about identification are OK, but answers are at the whim of other group members.”

It isn’t the first group to encourage communication among birders. There’s also an Island-specific bird hotline, where people can leave a message to report sightings. But it isn’t nearly as effective as the Facebook group, Mr. Woessner said. “[Facebook] was a big breakthrough,” he said. “And it’s neat because a lot of people are quite good photographers,” who share their images with the group.

The only Island Facebook group that sends him more notifications than the birders is the Poetry Society, of which Mr. Woessner is a member. He’s been writing poetry since his English major girlfriend told him creative writing was an easy way to boost his GPA. “She told me, you will get at least a B because they can’t be too judgmental,” he said. He received encouragement from Cornell University professor A.R. Ammons, an acclaimed poet who knew about chemistry, Mr. Woessner’s major, from his former life as a chemical glass salesman. He encouraged Mr. Woessner to send his poetry to publications, and in 1968, Mr. Woessner founded a literary magazine in Madison, Wisc., called Abraxas, still in publication. He has published several books of poetry, and was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in poetry in 1974.

His poetry is inseparable from his other love, birds, as he often writes about them and seems to glean inspiration from their flight. His poetry is concise, and conforms to few literary conventions. Some are conversational in tone, daringly honest, and others are descriptive, founded in crisp imagery. In “Inlet,” published in 1973, he writes: “While on the air/ sea gulls rise/ like rice-paper kites, low/ sun glowing/ through thin wings.” His most recent collection, Clear All the Rest of the Way, was published in 2008.

Aspiring Vineyard birders are advised to get to know a lot of people and places, Mr. Woessner said. Some of the access points, especially those on the northern shore of the Island, are closed to the pubic, and so knowing the right people is most important. Over the years he’s been birding on the Island, he has noticed that Chappaquiddick has received fewer birder visits due to erosion, and global warming has made some birds more common here than before, including some southern species. A typical birding trip with Mr. Woessner to Norton Point might include a cassette recorder that plays 700 different birdcalls, a pair of binoculars and a field guide.

Mr. Woessner credits his eye for color and tonal variation to his studies as an art history minor, while enrolled at Cornell University. He credits genetics for his love of birds. His mother and two sisters were avid birders, though growing up he rejected the hobby. Then, at the end of a long car trip, Mr. Woessner discovered that he could identify almost all the birds they came across. He was hooked. “There are also the usual reasons [for his nearly lifelong avocation], like they’re beautiful, and they can fly,” he said. “All humans fantasize about spreading our wings and flying.”

A lot of the growth in birders’ lists in recent years has resulted from “splitting,” a phenomenon in which researchers discover that a certain bird is actually genetically different from its cross-country equivalent. Without any effort, birders can add a bonus bird to their lists.

Unexpectedly, this is also an area in which Mr. Woessner is especially qualified to comment. In addition to his law degree from the University of Wisconsin, he also has a PhD in Organic Chemistry from the same school. As a founding shareholder of Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner, based in Minneapolis, Mr. Woessner works part-time helping professors and researchers with the legal side of their research. He blogs about his work at patents4life.com.

Once, the poet Robert Bly asked Mr. Woessner, “What are you doing these days?” He wondered something he often wonders: “In which of my three careers: birding, poetry or law?” His pursuit of several passions sets him apart in a world where people are encouraged to be super-specialized, he said. “Very few people try to do well in more than one area. But that’s sort of how I’ve lived my life.”