Outdoors

The rumors of a lousy scallop season appear likely to be true, according to The Star's fishing columnist, whose early-season reconnaissance mission turned up almost nothing in all of his usual haunts.

I wake up, look out the window, and instead of Noyac Bay and North Haven beyond, I’m looking at the Santa Barbara Channel and Santa Cruz Island looming up in the background. One day it’s one view, the next day another. Three thousand miles apart, but the water is blue, the sky cloudy, the country one and the same.

It was déjà vu all over again and again. The weather, especially the wind, has been relentless of late. It started early on Oct. 8 and finally blew itself out by Sunday. Chicago may be dubbed the Windy City, but the eastern end of Long Island can certainly hold its own when accounting for prolonged periods of gusty weather.

Just as the Norway rat may be the most adept of all the mammals, gulls — in particular, the herring gull — may be the most adept of all the birds.

How many of you know what the megagroups Pangaea, Gondwanaland, and Laurasia represent? Very few I’ll bet. In fact, I have only lately begun to study them.

Coming off the new moon, the incoming tide was screaming as we approached the rip. Combined with an east wind, it was running at over four knots, and according to the tide chart slack water was only 45 minutes away.

Back in 1982, the British rock band the Clash — one of my favorite groups of all time — came out with the song “Should I Stay or Should I Go.” A classic rocker of a song with a steady beat, it is punctuated with some hard-hitting, sarcastic lyrics, backed by some great guitar licks. It’s a catchy tune that topped the music charts and can still be heard on the airwaves.

Monday was mostly sunny and calm. Most of the summer crowd had gone back to the city and parts west. It was also the last day of September and the eighth day of autumn, a perfect opportunity for a leisurely drive around Southampton, Sag Harbor, and East Hampton to see how fall was shaping up.

As seems to happen every year, summer appears to get shorter and shorter. Memorial Day arrives and with a quick blink of the eye, Labor Day appears to roll right in.

Two of the greatest movements to warmer climes from colder ones that take place each year in both the Old and New Worlds are the great migrations of butterflies and dragonflies.

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.

Fishing this summer for various species of tuna, including albacore, yellowfin, bigeye, and bluefin, has been the best witnessed in many years, and it looks like it will continue well into the upcoming fall season.