Outdoors

Nature Notes The autumnal equinox is behind us. "The days grow short . . . one hasn't got time for the waiting game." Kurt Weill's message applies not just to humans, but to all life, and the ephemeral butterflies are no exception. Around The Garden It may be the end of September, but at Grey Gardens, that mythical house in East Hampton, the gardens are a wild fizz of color cascading over old walls, spilling from wide perennial borders, and weighing down arches and pergolas. It's as if someone had dropped a floral Alka-Seltzer in a glass of hazy green water. Armada Finds Fine Fishing Large striped bass and one very large thresher shark stood out during a week of pre-fall fishing that would have been hard to beat anywhere in the world. An armada of fishing boats of all sizes dotted the waters between Montauk and Block Island over the weekend, and by all accounts the fishing was fine all the way across and in the bays to the west as well.