outdoors

Paddleboard Operator Can Return for Time Being

T.E. McMorrow
Paddle Diva, which has been under fire from the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals for giving paddleboard lessons in Three Mile Harbor, can continue to operate this season, according to an agreement announced Tuesday between the town and the...
State Proposes New Protection for Diamondback Terrapin

Christopher Walsh
Declines in terrapin populations have prompted New York to consider banning their harvest.
Nature Notes: Eelgrass Imperiled

Larry Penny
Are there flowering plants that live in the seas? Yes, they are called sea grasses because, like land grasses, they are monocots, plants that only display a single leaf upon emerging from the seed.
Nature Notes: Spring As I Remember It

Larry Penny
It’s 3 p.m. on Sunday and the sun is shining in full glory following three days of cloudy rainy weather. The robins and cardinals are singing their territorial songs, the trees are beginning to leaf out, the red maples are flowering, and the scarlet...
Nature Notes: Environmental Champions

Larry Penny
A weekend with near-80-degree temperatures and it seems like spring prematurely turning into summer. Alewives, or river herring, are running, ospreys are sitting on nests, hardwood trees are budding, and at Oakland Cemetery in Sag Harbor, trailing...
Nature Notes: A Good Walk, Unspoiled

Larry Penny
Walking is good for you. My doctors say that. Just about every doctor says that. There are three kinds of recreational walking: fast steady walking, group walking with a guide, and walking by yourself or with another while studying the ground, sky,...
Nature Notes: Birds of Early Spring

Larry Penny
It was, indeed, a very rough March. But April is here and things are starting to pop. One sign of spring is the number of male robins on the greening shoulders along roads. Why they hit these shoulders first before the lawns is a question that has...
Nature Notes: Glory Days

Larry Penny
I’m in my 80s and spend a good deal of time thinking about the 1980s, when all sorts of things for the good happened on the South Fork, North Fork, and Shelter Island. And yes, there were many bad things to overcome.
Nature Notes: Of Birds and Berries

Larry Penny
The birds that have been showing up at your feeder daily will still need another couple of weeks of food to keep them going.
Nature Notes: First Not Always Best

Larry Penny
In nature, being the first to set up camp – or come out of hibernation – in the spring has its advantages. "The early bird catches the worm" or, in the osprey's case, the fish, but it also comes with risks; small creatures that emerge or return too...
See the Seals Above the Sea

Durell Godfrey
March, while it's still uncrowded, is a good month to see seals sunning themselves off Montauk Point.
Nature Notes: Mother Nature’s Revenge

Larry Penny
From long before our kindergarten years, the one thing that we all know for certain is that there is life on Earth, and we are immersed in it. In fact, according to the latest findings by scientists examining four-billion-year-old rocks on the...
Nature Notes: Raptor Rapture

Larry Penny
I was born in a house next to my grandfather’s chicken farm in Mattituck, across the bay. White leghorn chickens may have been the first bird species I opened my eyes to, the first bird species I came to know intimately. Before someone coined the...
Nature Notes: Spring Awakening

Larry Penny
One would think that with this mild weather and melting snow the area would come alive with all sorts of wildlife that, except for the gray squirrels, has largely been in hiding.