The sky turned steel gray and then black. The thunder thudded to the northeast. The black clouds rolled in, bringing the booms and cracks closer.

The four pairs of black skimmers on Norton Point are causing great excitement. Two families have four chicks, one family has three chicks and a fourth is on eggs. That brings the total to 11 black skimmer chicks. This is dynamite as the Vineyard has never produced a single black skimmer in the past! Questions about skimmer nesting behavior have been pouring in, so here goes.

Great excitement on Norton Point and also on Chappaquiddick!

The Vineyard is a huge maternity ward for birds at this time of year.

Well, it seems to me that shorebird migration is early. I have always considered July 4 the date for the beginning of the movement of sandpipers, plovers, dowitchers, knots and the like as they head south for their winter haunts. But the shorebirds came through the Vineyard earlier, their young have hatched earlier (and now are on their own), so why not head south earlier?

Three southern species which are now seen on the Vineyard are making news this week.