This, after all, was the 40th anniversary of the Cape Cod Bird Club’s Waterfowl Census, and they would not be denied their ducks.

At this turkey-oriented time, I’m here to take your mind off the fact that you have no plans to brine, or spatchcock, or deep fry a turkey in peanut oil, or whatever the gourmet types with endless free time tell us we should be doing to our turkeys.

I’ve been on enough offshore boat trips in fall that I’ve seen someone with an actual oriole on their baseball cap.

As so often happens, Facebook brought us word of the latest rare bird. A post in the Cape Cod Birders group on Monday showed clear photos of a hawk that, in the parlance of its native lands, ain’t from around these parts.

Though we’re back to short-sleeve weather and barely a leaf has reached the ground, I assure you it is indeed late October, which means that All Hallows Eve is upon us.

Lately I’ve been looking for birds in a small community garden near my daughter’s school in Orleans — as we saw with last week’s state-first Virginia’s Warbler, community gardens can yield a bountiful bird harvest in fall.

Ornithologist Mark Faherty says the fall season of rare bird sightings on Cape Cod has just started.

On Monday morning, as my son and I walked to the bus stop a little before 7, I was already hearing warblers. Specifically, I was hearing the flight calls these little songbirds give during migration.

I finally have a little time to watch birds each day, and it’s all thanks to the Monomoy School District. Between my kindergarten-aged son’s absurdly early bus time of 6:52 AM and the time we have to get my daughter up for pre-school, I have one deliciously unstructured hour.