The *Queens County Bird Club Inc.* will be meeting at the Alley Pond Environmental Center, 228-06 Northern Blvd Douglaston, NY 11362 <http://goo.gl/8cnmjT> >Map of location< at 8:00 pm on Wednesday, March 18, 2015. Free admission. Refreshments served.
Public transportation users: Meeting location is one mile from Bayside LIRR station; you can either walk, take Q12 bus, or use car service located at station. Our speaker will be Joe DiCostanzo presenting "Great Gull Island: Past and Present" The Great Gull Island project is a monitoring study of Common and Roseate Terns nesting on Great Gull Island. Recently it has been expanded to include surveys of the South American coast to determine where numbers of both species spend the nonbreeding season. Great Gull Island, 17 acres, lies at the eastern end of Long Island Sound, NY, USA. The former site of an army fort, its overgrown battlements are now defended by the largest concentration of nesting Common Terns in the world (9,500 pairs). The boulders dumped around the edge of the island to stabilize the shoreline, as well as some of the retaining walls of the fort, offer nesting sites for 1300 pairs of Roseate Terns, the largest nesting concentration of this endangered species in the Western Hemisphere. Joe DiCostanzo is a staff member of the American Museum of Natural History, Vertebrate Zoology, Ornithology Dept. He has worked on Great Gull Island since 1975. He oversees trapping on the island and is responsible for computerizing the data. Nancy Tognan Vice President: *Queens County Bird Club Inc*. See http://www.qcbirdclub.org/ for more information on trips, speakers, and other events! See our 'Birding Maps & Locations' page for directions to and info about many local birding hotspots * QCBC is a tax exempt, charitable organization {501c3}. * -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
