It all started with a message on the bird hot line which I received on July 2. A Chappaquiddick summer resident called to say that she had a pair of merlins that appeared to be nesting on her property. Hmm, said I. I was pretty sure there were no records of merlins nesting in Massachusetts, but I checked the Birds of Massachusetts, by R. Veit and W. Petersen before I called. I was right.

Comics About You

Children’s author and illustrator Katie Davis will be visiting two of the Island libraries in the week ahead, leading a free program in which kids will be encouraged to work on journal entries in the comic book format which the author calls “autobiogra-strips.”

In Ms. Davis’s novel for middle-grade readers, The Curse of Addy McMahon, the title character keeps her diary in comic-strip format.

In this serialized novel set on the Vineyard in real time, a native Islander (“Call me Becca”) returns home after many years in Manhattan to help her eccentric Uncle Abe keep his landscaping business, Pequot, afloat. Abe has an intense loathing of Richard Moby, the CEO of Broadway, an off-Island landscaping business. He is irrationally convinced that Moby wants to destroy Abe personally, as well as all Island-based landscaping/nursery businesses in general. Abe is now obsessed with “taking down” Moby before Moby can hurt him.

Mostly Barns is the title of Wendy Weldon’s solo show at the Shaw Cramer Gallery opening today with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m.

Continuing her fascination with the shapes of barns and stone walls, she explores new inspirations of composition and color. Many of the paintings explore the relationship of two barns in various configurations.

The Polly Hill Arboretum and the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center are pleased to host landscape historian Kenneth Helphand on Sunday, July 13, at 7:30 p.m. at the arboretum.

In this lecture Mr. Helphand will discuss his award-winning and deeply moving book Defiant Gardens: Making Gardens in Wartime, which states: “Gardens promise beauty where there is none, hope over despair, optimism over pessimism, and finally life in the face of death.”

Institute Presents Film,

Panel Discussion on Family

The Summer Institute of the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center in the coming week will present a film and a panel discussion on the theme of family, with experts on raising girls and boys.

Yard Arts! this weekend kicks off its third year of presenting dance, theater, music and opera on Martha’s Vineyard, which runs from July 13 to Sept. 21.

This year is a bittersweet one for The Yard, its first summer season without founder Patricia N. Nanon, who passed away in February. Her legacy continues with those at The Yard committed to her vision of nurturing and supporting the art of choreography and the growth of individual artists, thanks to her generous gift last year of the Chilmark land and buildings The Yard calls home.

Jewelers Design for Men

At Saturday’s Dukes County avenue arts district stroll from 4 to 7 p.m. the Men’s Jewelry Collective will be displaying a preview of a much larger group show to take place in August at Pik-Nik in Oak Bluffs. The show will feature mostly local artisans who have turned the tables on their work and interpreted it for the men’s jewelry market — including Rick Hamilton, Beth McElhinney, Paul D’Olympia and Michele Ratte.

The Friends of the Chilmark Public Library presents a slide show and artist talk featuring the new work of Carol Brown Goldberg on Wednesday, July 16, at 5:30 p.m. at the Chilmark Public Library.

Ms. Goldberg, a Chilmark summer resident since 1984, has been exhibiting in Washington, D.C., for more than 35 years. She is represented by Osuna Art in Bethesda, Md., and Adamar Gallery in Miami, Fla.

THE BISHOP’S DAUGHTER: A Memoir. By Honor Moore. Illustrated. W.W. Norton & Co. Inc. 354 pages. $25.95 hardcover.

In the 1970s, the late Episcopal Bishop Paul Moore Jr. was a Chilmark seasonal visitor. He came to the Island after the death of his first wife, Jenny McKean, and his marriage to Brenda Hughes Eagle who had a Chilmark home. Now his eldest daughter by his first marriage has written a memoir about her own life and the life of her illustrious father.