As we turn another calendar page, we’re also turning a corner in the fall migration. I’ve always preferred October to September, mainly because we tend to get more birds later in the fall.

You may have noticed that it rained recently, for the first time in what seemed like years. In addition to a satisfying, multi-day soaking of our parched soils, this weather also brought the kind of winds that get the attention of storm bird chasers, that hardy and quirky subset of the already quirky subset of society that is birders.

When it comes to bird photography, experienced practitioners know that sometimes it’s best to shoot first and ask questions later. What I mean is, even expert birders don’t always know exactly what they’re looking at until they get home and look at the photos.

More than 300 species of birds have been recorded from Race Point, the second-highest list of anywhere on the Cape and Islands.

It’s not just back to school time for kids, all those billions of young birds that hatched over the spring and summer need to learn how to be birds, and it’s a real school of hard knocks.

In all my years of camping and doing field work around the US I never knew that flying squirrels could be camp scavengers.

The birds, being well-versed in Shakespeare, know that all the world’s a stage. Maybe not, but what they do know is that some of the world’s a staging area, and one of the most important staging areas is right here on the Cape and Islands.

In case you haven’t heard, the Globetrotters are in town. Not the basketball ones, in case you thought of them first for some reason - I’m talking about the actual globe trotters, the Arctic-nesting shorebirds.