Outdoors

Just a month ago nine dogs died from drinking pond water in New York City’s Central Park that was thick with blue-green algae, oops, I mean cyanobacteria, which is not actually algae at all.

The bowhunting season for deer opens on Oct. 1, and in Suffolk County licensed archers can obtain permits starting on Monday for access to designated areas in select county parks. 

Gloria was a powerful Category 3 storm and had just brought a storm surge of 8 to 12 feet to North Carolina’s Outer Banks, with 125-mile-per-hour wind gusts.

Did you know that according to the Encyclopedia Britannica there are 43 different species of the deer family, Cervidae, worldwide?

It’s September, the favorite month for hurricanes. The shorebirds that went to the tundra to breed are already halfway south. We humans have very high I.Q.s, but we can’t fly. Some butterflies and darning needles are also on their way south. They have lower I.Q.s than birds, yet they can also fly and know where the winter is warm.

It felt like only yesterday that we were all celebrating Memorial Day in joyful unison. The summer season was upon us. Time to relax and take in the lazy, hazy days of sunshine, fishing, barbecues, and beaches. But, while the calendar technically states that it is still summer, the party is over for many people. It went fast, too fast for me.

They go by many names. Blow toads, sea squab, chicken of the sea, blowfish, and puffers are just a few of the common ones. But no matter which name you know them by, they usually bring a smile to just about any face.

Many of the not-so-rare but equally beautiful native plants were in flower — the yellow Maryland golden asters, the pinkish-purple Joe-Pye weed, the purplish-blue slender bush clover — while several species of goldenrods were just beginning to bloom.

Baby bluefish, also known as snappers in these parts, have arrived en masse. The annual invasion of the sporty little fish is evident at every dock, wharf, and bulkhead on the East End.

Something peculiar is going on in Turkeydom. Turkeys here and there on the South Fork have begun to develop bunches of pustules on their faces and elsewhere, but only on bare patches of skin, not on feathered areas.

We have reached a point in the world’s development when species will be lost at a faster rate than evolution can compensate for.

While we are still in the summer season, early Saturday morning in Montauk Harbor felt as if a faint hint of September were in the air. A cold front had passed through a few hours earlier and the breeze was coming from the cooler and drier northwest.