Can you believe it is November already? And it is dark at 5 p.m.? The latter certainly does not affect birds as it is unlikely that they know what Daylight Saving Time is. But they certainly know it is November, and their southward migration is still in full swing. Sparrows and other finches are moving through, and our winter resident waterfowl are showing up. Their numbers will continue to swell as the season progresses. A lot of the ducks only come south when the more northern waters freeze over, which may not happen until December or even January.

By LYNNE IRONS

“One could do worse that be a swinger of birches.”

So said Robert Frost, who also insisted that he’d “like to go by climbing a birch tree/And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk toward heaven/Till the tree could bear no more, but dipped its top and set me down again/ That would be good both going and coming back.”

Are your pumpkins starting to shrivel into something scarier than sugared-up kids at Halloween? Then it’s just in time for the Islandwide Feed a Pig a Pumpkin Day tomorrow.

On Saturday, Nov. 8, recycle your out-of-date jack’o’lanterns from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the following farmers: Allen Farm in Chilmark, Farm Institute in Edgartown, Native Earth Teaching Farm in Chilmark and at SBS, for the Thompson family farm, in Vineyard Haven.

If you are prone to anxiety, ‘tis the season for a full-blown attack, with Thanksgiving only weeks away and Christmas around the corner. Menus, grocery lists, hours in the kitchen, house guests — it all makes you want to leave the country or convert.

The Vineyard Committee on Hunger is looking for sponsors to help Island families in need have a great Thanksgiving meal. Sponsors are asked to contribute $25, the cost of one family’s meal. Last year’s program was able to provide over 120 meals for each of the Thanksgiving and December holidays.

The Capawock Theatre in Vineyard Haven introduces a two-part November rock and roll cinema program this weekend with Smashing Pumpkins: If All Goes Wrong. The Pumpkins film screens tonight, Friday, Nov. 7 at 9:15 p.m. and Monday, Nov. 10 at 7 and again at 9:15 p.m.

The second film, The Who: Live at Kilburn 1977, will be showing Saturday, Nov. 15 at 4 and 9:15 p.m.

The third annual full-length playwright competition is now open for playwrights on the Cape and Islands. Sponsored by Eventide Arts Inc., the contest will award a $1,000 Kaplan prize to one play selected by the judges. The winning play will have a staged reading next June in West Dennis.

Louisa Gould Gallery announces a new show, The Permanent Collection of the Martha’s Vineyard Art Association, opening Saturday, Nov. 8, with a reception from 4 to 6 p.m.

In this serialized novel set on the Vineyard in real time, a native Islander (“Call me Becca”) returns home after years in Manhattan to help her eccentric Uncle Abe keep his landscaping business, Pequot, afloat. Abe loathes Richard Moby, chief executive of the off-Island landscaping business Broadway. Abe is irrationally convinced that Moby wants to destroy Abe personally, and Island-based nursery businesses in general.