When the ball drops marking the beginning of the new year, for some, a silent gun goes off and an invisible race begins. They’re the bird listers, and their goal is to find as many different species of birds as they can over the next year.

In a petition started Monday, the Ditch Plains Association is gathering signatures to “urgently appeal to the East Hampton Town Board to take immediate and decisive action to address the critical loss of the protective dune . . . a consequence of two recent coastal storms.”

The East Hampton Town Board has set Feb. 1 as a tentative date to decide whether to exempt the proposed new senior citizens center, to be constructed on Abraham’s Path in Amagansett, from the town’s zoning and land-use procedures.

For many years, the Marmador, a family-run luncheonette in the Edwards Theater building on Main Street, was the choice for hungry people of all stripes.