Warm, overcast and stormy with strong southerly winds. Everything on land was hunkered down but the gulls and Osprey were soaring. There were Royal Terns coming in on the wind. Also a small group of Lesser Yellowlegs coming up the creek, calling (a --,-- pattern) and showing their short bills quite clearly.

Kevin McAllister, the Peconic Baykeeper himself, held a public press conference this morning at the Quogue Wildlife Refuge and, together with some other distinguished speakers -- politicians, legal eagles, a local bayman and someone from the Shinnecock Nation -- laid out both the dimensions of the need and a plan of action. Water is everything out here; it's above us, below us and all around us and we owe everything to it. Without clean water there would be no tourism and all property values would plummet. No fish, no shellfish, no birds, no boating, no swimming, no...well you get the picture. And yet we are letting our ground water as well as our fresh and salt waters be poisoned and polluted by overdevelopment, outdated septic systems, poison spraying for mosquitos, lax enforcement or no enforcement of existing codes, etc. etc. The result: groundwater pollution that leaches right through our sandy soil and into the bays causing brown tides, red tides, algae growth oxygen depletion, you name it. Check out the Baykeeper website and give them as much support as you can!

Eric Salzman