On paper, a 2,379-square-foot house on the South Fork may not seem outlandish, but place that house on a .17-acre lot in a flood zone with a raised swimming pool and decking in the middle of Ditch Plain in Montauk, and both neighbors and town planners have a problem.

In East Hampton Town’s villages and hamlets, yes, sales are down, but it’s because the inventory of available properties is at a historic low, brokers here are saying. "Our prices have not dropped off a cliff — we just don’t have any houses to sell.”

Cardinals, among our earliest singer each spring, are so familiar you might forget to appreciate them, but a century ago they were rare in New York.

Beachgoers will soon see temporary string fencing at sites along 18 miles of ocean and bay shoreline, as the federally and New York State-protected piping plover makes its annual return to East Hampton Town and Village.

Anna Soccorsi of the Natural Resources Department told the town board on March 21 that it is seeking seasonal volunteers to monitor sites where the shorebirds nest, the better to assist conservation efforts of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and State Department of Environmental Conservation.