I am looking for a good romp.

A romp is a group or pack of otters and in this season of snow and ice, these mammals have left their mark. The evidence can be seen at watering holes Islandwide. Elusive river otters (the Island’s only variety) leave behind tracks, slides, and scat (droppings).

Theatre Tryouts

This Sunday, Jan. 25, the Island Theatre Workshop, Inc. is holding tryouts for two programs of one-act plays to run at the end of March. Artistic director Lee Fierro and board member Kevin Ryan will be joined by Leslie J. Stark to direct the five plays. The tryouts will be held from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Katharine Cornell Theatre. For details, call 508-693-5290.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness of Massachusetts is sponsoring a free family-to-family educational course in Oak Bluffs for family members of individuals with a serious mental illness. The course has been given nationwide to over 100,000 family members since its inception. It is taught by two trained family member volunteers and is intended to help family caregivers cope with a close relative’s mental illness.

Teachers and parents from across Massachusetts took part in the Rising Stars of Massachusetts celebration, an annual event sponsored by the Early Education for All campaign to highlight the positive impact high-quality early education has on young children and families. But the real starring role was played by pre-kindergarteners from Martha’s Vineyard Community Services Early Childhood Program.

On display at the Steamship Authority’s Vineyard Haven terminal Thursday, Jan. 29 from 4 to 6 p.m. will be a special collection of works by young artists Islandwide. Their subject: Vineyard smiles. The show is meant to be a teaser for National Children’s Dental Health Month, coming up in February. Sponsored by Vineyard Smiles, an oral health initiative of Island Health Inc. and the Vineyard Health Care Access, the purpose of the show is to increase youth awareness of the importance of dental hygiene.

Here Comes Maisy

Children’s author Lucy Cousins’ story-book character, Maisy, is making the rounds to all the Island libraries. Children are invited to come and meet Maisy during the following story times:

Chilmark Public Library, Saturday, Jan.24, 10:30 a.m.

West Tisbury Public Library, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 10:30 a.m.

Edgartown Public Library, Saturday, Jan. 31, 3 p.m.

Vineyard Haven Public Library, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 10 and 11 a.m.

Announcing Bess

Shannon and Daniel Carbon are happy to announce the birth of Jack’s sister, Elizabeth Graciosa Carbon. Bess was born on August 12, 2008 in Porto, Portugal. Her grandparents are Virginia and Jack Carbon of Edgartown and Pat and Dorothy Gregory of West Tisbury.

Welcome Alexander

Samantha and Michael Horton of Nantucket announce the birth of a son, Alexander Meverll Horton, on Jan. 5 at the Nantucket Cottage Hospital. Alexander weighed 6 pounds 14 ounces and measured 19 and a half inches at birth. He is the grandson of Anne and Meverell Good of Vineyard Haven and Nancy and Travis Horton of Glastonbury, Conn.

Don’t look now but those large gray and white geese out in a field near you may not all be Canada geese. It is worth checking through those flocks carefully just now. The reason is that several unusual but similar species have appeared in our region recently that are most likely to be found mixed in with the Canadas. A greater white-fronted goose has been seen on Nantucket within the last week. This western and Midwestern species has been found here five times, the last record in 1995. More surprising, a pink-footed goose which nests from eastern Greenland eastward into Europe, was seen on the Cape a few days ago, apparently the first Massachusetts occurrence of the wild bird. To top that off, a flock of 24 cackling geese was seen at Salt Pond in Falmouth within the week, in easy sight of West Chop. This species looks like a miniature Canada goose, not much larger than a mallard, also from the west. The most recent issue of North American Birds, published by the American Birding Association, has a fine article on how to distinguish the three races of cackling goose: Ridgways, Aleutian and Richardson’s. We know of only two records for this species here, in 1958 and 1987. I’ll settle for any of the three forms. And while on the subject of possible vagrant goose species, it should be remembered that barnacle goose, another wanderer from Greenland and Europe, turned up in both Rhode Island last winter and other years in Massachusetts. While we seldom see geese arriving here from the Cape, the recent spate of very cold weather may be just the kind of conditions that would prompt their doing so.

In this year-long serialized novel set on the Vineyard in real time, a native Islander (“Call me Becca”) returns home after two decades to help her eccentric Uncle Abe keep his landscaping business, Pequot, afloat. His staff includes Quincas, a Brazilian. Abe has a paranoid hatred of Richard Moby, the CEO of an off-Island wholesale nursery, Broadway. Convinced that Moby wants to destroy Abe personally, and all Island-based landscaping/nursery businesses generally, Abe is obsessed with “taking down” Moby.