Birders everywhere grab their binoculars and foul weather gear and head out to look for birds during a storm. The blow we had last weekend was no exception. Vineyard birders were in hopes that pelagic (oceanic) birds would be blown onshore, or at least close enough to see and identify. That was not the case, unfortunately. On Cape Cod it was a different story, where Blair Nikula spotted Cory’s shearwaters, dovekies, pomarine jaegers, black-legged kittiwakes and common terns on Nov. 2.

The same day here on the Vineyard, a few stalwart Vineyard birders went to Squibnocket. Bob Shriber, Mark Foster, Flip Harrington and I spent a short time trying to see offshore. The weather was too much for us, but we were able to count eight harlequin ducks and nine white-winged scoters off the Squibnocket parking lot. Our best bird was a Foster’s tern in Squibnocket Pond, fishing over two hooded mergansers and six ruddy ducks. Three very wind-blown sanderlings were hunting along the parking lot beach.

The day before, Nov. 1, it was blowing a gale and raining cats and dogs. Ken Magnuson found American wigeon at the head of the Lagoon, 200 Bonaparte’s gulls, a Wilson’s snipe, and a vesper sparrow at the Farm Institute. Halloween day Bob Shriber, Mark Foster and Ken Magnuson braved the rain, and looking off the Gay Head Cliffs they counted thousands of common eiders, all three species of scoters in numbers, both common and red-throated loons and many northern gannets. At Squibnocket Pond they found horned grebes, ruddy ducks, hooded mergansers and buffleheads.

Matt Pelikan suggested that with the wind from the northeast, Cape Cod blocks the storm-blown birds. Guess we need to have that wind shift slightly to send the birds around the Cape to the Vineyard.

Bird Sightings:

Snow bunting. — Lanny McDowell

There are three special bird sightings from last week. On Halloween Jean-Marc Dupon spotted a cattle egret at Flat Point Farm, owned by the Fischer’s in West Tisbury. Jean-Marc also spotted a great blue heron in Short Cove in Tisbury Great Pond the same day. David Damroth and Barbara Lee had an evening grosbeak show up at their Squibnocket feeder on Nov. 1. William Waterway spotted and photographed a snow bunting that he saw on South Beach near Katama on Oct. 28.

Penny Uhlendorf and Scott Stephens announced that the ruby-throated hummingbird that started visiting their Pilot Hill feeder on Oct. 8 departed on Oct. 30. That clever bird probably sensed the weather brewing and left for calmer shores. Penny and Scott had a hermit thrush in their yard the same day and in the Phillips Preserve, they spotted a yellow-bellied sapsucker. Lanny McDowell sent a nice series of photographs of hermit thrushes that he took at Felix Neck on Oct. 31.

Allan Keith, Bob Shriber, Flip Harrington and I birded Aquinnah on Oct. 30. Our best birds were two great cormorants, a count of around 2,000 black scoters, two sharp-shinned and two Cooper’s hawks, a merlin, 65 tree swallow, two hermit thrushes, a vesper sparrow, an orange-crowned and Nashville warbler hawking insects on the porch of the Aquinnah Shop, 70 pine siskins and four purple finches. Bob Shriber continued by himself and found a Eurasian wigeon and eight American wigeon at Quenames Cove at Black Point. He also counted three northern harriers and 20 green-winged teal.

Two days prior on Oct. 28, Allan Keith counted 2.000 black scoters, 50 surf scoters and 100 white-winged scoters, and 250 common eiders off the Gay Head Cliffs. Near the homestead, Allan found six sharp-shinned and one Cooper’s hawk, and a merlin, five eastern phoebes, 50 tree swallow, a house wren, multiple ruby-crowned kinglets, two orange-crowned warblers, a Baltimore oriole and a purple finch to name a few. At the Gay Head Moraine Allan added 10 hermit thrushes, a red-eyed vireo and more ruby-crowned kinglets. At Squibnocket the ducks Allan spotted included a female wood duck, three green-winged teal and two American wigeon. Also seen was a late-staying American redstart, three more hermit thrushes, a peregrine falcon, three eastern phoebes, more ruby-crowned kinglets and a single orange-crowed kinglet.

At the other end of the Island, Jeff Bernier photographed an eastern phoebe and hooded mergansers at the Sheriff’s Meadow Sanctuary in Edgartown also on Oct. 28. Luanne Johnson and many others have noted the arrival of dark-eyed juncos as of Oct. 28.

Cookie Gazaille Perry, while scalloping at Cape Pogue on Oct. 29, spotted sanderlings and yellow-rumped warblers hawking insects in the seaweed along the beach and buffleheads in Cape Pogue Bay. On Oct. 31 Cookie spotted two northern gannets over East Beach.

Lanny McDowell took an interesting photo of an eastern meadowlark at the Farm Institute on Oct. 30.

Vasha Brunelle counted between 50 to 60 buffleheads in the Lagoon in Tisbury on Nov. 4.

Rob Bierregaard’s web site, ospreytrax.com, informed the readers that Belle, the female that was fitted with a satellite transmitter five years ago, has broken a record. She has completed her fourth trip south from the Vineyard to Rio Madeira, Brazil. Rob added that he is not getting as many signals from her radio and figures that it is old and on its way out. These radio transmitters are usually only expected to last three years, so Belle’s radio is on borrowed time. Rob said if they can catch Belle next summer, they will remove the radio. Check the website to find out what Snowy and DJ, the other two Vineyard ospreys with radios, are doing.

Sally Hamilton sent the following: “A brilliant day last week, driving from Edgartown along State Beach towards Oak Bluffs and off to the left . . . brilliantly backlit by lowering sun around 4 p.m. there were about 20 gulls low flying along the edges of Sengekontacket Pond, skittering their wings in the edge water and lifting the splash so as to form glittering arcs of water. Of course maybe they were doing a beautiful maneuver to improve food gathering but they just were moving the length of the pond and not stopping to grub.” She asked me what kind of gulls I thought they were. I suggested either laughing gulls or Bonaparte’s gulls. I asked other Vineyard birders and three out of four suggested Bonaparte’s. Bob Shriber said if the birds were dabbling then they are Bonaparte’s, but laughing gulls are skimming the surface for bait right now. I have yet to hear from Sally as to which feeding behavior the flock was showing.

On Nov. 2 after the storm, the Quenames feeder had a common grackle and a pine siskin along with several purple finches. While I was typing up this column on Nov. 4, I looked out the window at my fuchsia plant, which still has a few blossoms, and there was a male ruby-throated hummingbird feeding. Do I put up my feeder? I decided not to. Hopefully he was just passing through between fronts.

Please report your bird sightings to birds@mvgazette.com.

Susan B. Whiting is the co-author of Vineyard Birds and Vineyard Birds II. Her webite is vineyardbirds2.com.