Island naturalist Gus Ben David stopped by the Gazette Wednesday morning with a strigine guest in tow: a five-and-a-half-week-old great horned owl.

Rob Bierregaard's first children's book inhabits a world he is both familiar with and passionate about. Belle's Journey: An Osprey Takes Flight tells the story of a real-life young osprey finding her wings and traveling the world.

Mr. Ben David paid a visit to the Gazette Tuesday with his newest charge, a three-week-old great horned owlet that fell out of a nest near the Blue Hills reservation in Quincy.

Gus Ben David considers his yard. There is a pond with two trumpeter swans, two mute swans, a flock of geese and two call ducks. Then there are the giant water tanks containing large snapping turtles.

It’s been a record-breaking year for Vineyard osprey, the majestic raptor that now nests on the Island in greater numbers than ever before.

Home to only two breeding pairs in 1970, the Island can now count 83 such pairs of osprey among its avian residents.

In a three-way partnership that will protect the last key piece of undeveloped land at one of the oldest wildlife sanctuaries on the Vineyard, the Martha's Vineyard Land Bank, the Massachusetts Audubon Society and the Felix Neck Wildlife Trust announced yesterday that they will buy 34 acres from Lucia Moffet for $2.55 million.

The Moffet property runs along the entire length of the entrance road to the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary on the eastern side.

The Martha's Vineyard Land Bank, the Felix Neck Wildlife Trust and the Massachusetts Audubon Society closed on a land purchase last week that will protect the last key piece of undeveloped land at Felix Neck.

Today's lesson is turtles.

A tiny boy wearing a T-shirt, shorts and cap stands up suddenly and
shades his eyes with his hands.

"I can't see, Gus - sorry!" he exclaims.