It is a challenge to type when you are offshore on a bouncy vessel in a series of line squalls! However, when weather breaks we find we are in good company. Wilson’s storm petrels and an occasional common loon are the most common birds we spot. Pods of dolphins, probably bottle-nosed, play in our bow wake for a while and then veer off to feed or find a new toy. Closer to shore we are joined by laughing, herring and black-backed gulls and common and least terns. A more familiar group of feathered friends are our companions as we near home.

T he group of birds referred to as shorebirds includes a wide array of species. There are all the sandpipers and all the plovers. There are turnstones, godwits, curlews, avocets, woodcock and phalaropes as well. On Martha’s Vineyard we are fortunate to still have the right sorts of habitat to attract a few shorebird nesters. We have willets in the tidal marshes at a number of locations, and it is possible there are still killdeer and spotted sandpipers, although four-legged predators have made them exceptionally scarce.

The general impression is that the West Tisbury Farmers’ Market is having a slow start to its 35th year. Farmers are weathering a recession as well as the persistent rains which are dampening the enthusiasm of crops and shoppers alike.

Nailing down anything more specific, though, is hard work. There are 40 vendors at the West Tisbury market and as many prognostications about the coming season. The market opens from 9 to noon tomorrow for its second Wednesday, and for the fourth Saturday, July 4.