David Vanderhoop spotted a brown pelican in West Basin, Aquinnah on Nov. 1. He or she was hanging out with double-crested cormorants on a float in West Basin and flying around Red Beach in Lobsterville.

Brown pelicans have only been seen five other times on the Vineyard and always in the fall. However, as Matt Pelikan pointed out, with climate changes there have been sightings of brown pelicans in New England almost annually. Historically, the first Massachusetts record of brown pelican was one shot in 1867 on Nantucket.

The best autumn starry nights are ahead; especially in the coming week when the moon is mostly out of the picture.

This is the time of year to get outside and gaze skyward, when we have the clarity of a winter sky and the comfort of autumn. It is not too cold yet. The Island has yet to experience tiger frost, the bitter cold night when nearly all the deciduous trees and many seasonal plants take a frosty hit.

Hurricane Sandy, the historic storm that dealt a knockout blow to New York city and the New Jersey coast early this week spared the Vineyard for the most part. But while the center of the storm stayed hundreds of miles away, the Island experienced near-hurricane conditions throughout the day on Monday, including serious flooding and coastal erosion, forcing school closures, transportation shuts downs and a day indoors for most Islanders, often without power.

Hurricane Sandy is being characterized as the worst storm in recorded weather history to hit the Northeast, worse than the 1938 hurricane.

And while the Vineyard was at the outer edge of the huge, historic storm and escaped the most severe conditions, weather data provided by the National Weather Service shows that wind speed, storm surge and barometric pressure were near hurricane strength, even on the Island.

Juvenile striped bass spawned in the Chesapeake Bay were at a record low at the end of the summer. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources recently completed its annual young of the year survey and found far fewer juvenile fish than a year ago.

Scientists believe the factors are more tied to unusually warm weather conditions in the Chesapeake than to the number of adult fish spawning in the bay.

Mild temperatures this fall have confused humans and birds alike. I usually suggest putting up feeders after the first frost if you are a seasonal provider, yet I have put mine up already. There are some rules that should be reviewed every fall, or year-round if that is your method of providing for your feathered friends, about how to keep the birds that come to your feeders and birdbaths healthy.