It was past Columbus Day, yet the sidewalks of Edgartown were bustling, the restaurants packed, the weekend offering cheese seminars, cocktail hour and dinner parties. It was the first annual Martha’s Vineyard Harvest Festival, organized by the Edgartown Board of Trade to celebrate food and wine, and to bolster this end of the shoulder season.

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

THE MOST IMPORTANT FISH IN THE SEA, by H. Bruce Franklin. Island Press / Shearwater Books, Washington, 2007, 266 pages.

Eleven years ago, a group of Island fishermen went to Sandwich to attend a public hearing on the management of striped bass. We all sat in an overcrowded auditorium and listened. One commercial lobsterman stood before the regulators and complained too many striped bass were eating his lobsters and ruining his fishery.

There are some things that I would expect a youngster to bring home from preschool. Among these would be drawings to hang up on the fridge, simple arts and crafts projects, and even perhaps a cold caught from another child.

What I wouldn’t expect is what Hunter Meader brought home to his family — a colorful, voluptuous spider. Hunter did not find the spider himself; but since no one in his class could identify this arachnid, this budding naturalist took on the identification task himself.

Gay Head or Aquinnah has the Vineyard birders enraptured watching the movement of large numbers of raptors in the last two weeks. To steal the words of Pete Dunne, David Sibley and Clay Sutton from their book Hawks in Flight, bird watchers in Gay Head observed a collection of wind masters (buteos), artful dodgers (accipters), fish hawks (osprey), great foolers (northern harriers), falcons, and big black birds (eagles and vultures) passing over the Vineyard on their way to points south.

Fifty-two walkers completed the Island’s eighth annual, four-mile Miles of Memories Alzheimer’s Walk on Sunday, Oct. 14. The fastest participants were Lara Uva and Donna Leon, who completed the walk in just over an hour. Willy Binks ran the race and came in first.

The slowest walker actually rolled across the finish line: Florence Bruder was in a wheelchair, pushed by her daughter, M.J. Bruder Munafo, and playwright Maureen Hourihan. The eldest walker, Josephine Spahr, age 100, also cruised along in a wheelchair, pushed by the Rev. Arlene Bodge.

Barbara Prada, the Edgartown animal control officer, has been fielding some strange calls this summer. So when she submitted her quarterly report to the Edgartown selectmen on Monday, the board had a few questions ready.

Selectmen: “Are you trying to kid us here?”

Ms. Prada: “No, someone actually called.”

Selectmen: “Was it a mountain lion?”

Ms. Prada: “No, she called back a few hours later to say. ‘I saw it again and it’s actually not a mountain lion’.”

A motorist traveling outbound on Main street in Edgartown crashed into a landscaping truck yesterday, driving up and over a trailer attached to the truck, damaging both vehicles.

Nancy Ambrose, 75, was driving her 1997 Toyota Rav4 northbound on Upper Main street when she rear-ended a truck from Anthony’s Landscaping in front of the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank headquarters, police said.

Ms. Ambrose’s vehicle drove up on top of a trailer used for hauling lawn mowers attached to the rear of the truck and came to rest in midair.

In marking its 10th anniversary, the Spirit of the Vineyard award fittingly will be presented to its founder, Polly Brown, at a breakfast in her honor at the Up-Island Council on Aging in the Howes House in West Tisbury on Saturday, Oct. 20 at 8 a.m. Hospice of Martha’s Vineyard established the Spirit of the Vineyard award to honor the volunteers who have given their time, talent and energy to a wide range of Island charitable causes over a long period of time.

A body that washed ashore in Edgartown harbor earlier this year is expected to be identified as a Brazilian carpenter who went missing over 18 months ago, state police said this week.

State police Sgt. Jeff Stone said investigators believe the body found on a small stretch of beach at the end of Morse street on April 16 was Renato Gomes Da Rocha, a 48-year-old Brazilian national who disappeared from the Island without trace in April of 2006.

The body of a Fairhaven man who likely jumped overboard from the New Bedford high-speed ferry to the Vineyard last month was found along a isolated stretch of beach on West Chop Saturday, police said.

The body of Walter Tyler, 28, was found around 7:45 a.m. near the West Chop pier along a north facing beach. Police said the body was partially decomposed, and was found wearing the same clothing Mr. Tyler was wearing when he boarded the fast ferry last month.