The Martha’s Vineyard Museum is hosting two agricultural fair photo collection days to help with a new book being created by Susan Klein and Alan Brigish. The authors are on a quest to find a variety of images taken at the fair over the years for inclusion in the upcoming book. Photos will be scanned and returned immediately.

The collection days will be held on Friday, Jan. 6, from noon to 1 p.m. and 4 to 6 p.m. and again on Saturday, Jan. 7, from noon to 3 p.m. Both dates take place at 59 School street in Edgartown.

Volunteers at this year’s Christmas Bird Count spotted 119 species, according to Gazette bird columnist Susan Whiting, a cocompiler of the annual event on the Island. Though the species count was similar to recent years, the number of individual birds spotted, 21,730, was lower than in most counts of late. In 2010, only 15,926 individual birds were counted, due to few participant, but in 2009 32,114 individual birds were recorded. In 2008, that number was nearly 83,000.

1. Renowned British Architect Acquires Blue Heron Farm, Dec. 2, 2011
2. Cronkite Heirs Sell Green Hollow Home, Feb. 4, 2011
3. President Obama Returns to Island, Aug. 9, 2011
4. Storm Erodes South Shore, Imperiling Homes, Aug.

Tisbury Democrats are looking for delegates to send to the 2012 Massachusetts Democratic convention next June. The town Democrats are planning a caucus in February to elect three delegates and three alternates.

The caucus is open to all registered Democrats in Tisbury, but you must be registered by Friday, Dec. 30, in order to be eligible.

The caucus will be held on Feb. 25 at Rocco’s Family Style Italian Restaurant. Delegates will participate in selecting candidates to compete for the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate.

Vineyard hotelier Mark Snider is expanding his interests to Nantucket, where he is set to buy The Point Breeze, a historic hotel on the Vineyard’s sister island. Mr. Snider owns the Winnetu Oceanside Resort at Katama in Edgartown. He is also president of Stanmar Inc., a building company in Wayland.

The Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror reported on Thursday that Mr. Snider has signed a deal to buy the Point Breeze from TD Bank, which has owned the hotel since it fell into foreclosure two years ago. Purchase price has not been disclosed.

Dust off your sneakers, sharpen your skates and get ready to burn off that eggnog. Or just round up the family and cheer on the hometown boys, girls, men and women of present and years past.

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Though the temperature might imply otherwise, Dec. 21 marks the first day of winter, as well as the shortest day of the year. Going forward, daylight will start to increase by mere seconds each day.

Want to see Edgartown’s first poet laureate in action? Steve Ewing, recently appointed to the post, will join a host of other Island poets for the Martha’s Vineyard Poetry Society’s Winter Solstice gathering on Wednesday, Dec. 21 at the Vineyard Haven Library. The reading will take place from 7 to 9 p.m.

All four traffic lanes on the Bourne Bridge have been reopened following a weeks-long steel repair project, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England District has announced.

Steel repair work will continue below the road deck on the Bourne Bridge until the fall of 2012, resulting in occasional one-day lane restrictions during the next couple of weeks and through the fall of 2012.