Tern ID Study with Scopes at Nickerson Beach

Date: Thursday, June 5, 2025

Leaders: Patricia Lindsay and Shi Mitra
Carpool Trip: Drivers willing to provide rides are encouraged to attend. The Registrar will work with participants without a vehicle to organize rides and share the suggested carpool fee for the driver. This usually works out, but we can not guarantee a ride unless there are enough volunteer drivers.
Meeting Point: After your registration is confirmed, the Registrar will share directions, the exact meeting place, and time with attendees.
Schedule: This trip starts early and will likely end in the early afternoon.
Relative difficulty: There will be a lot of walking on sandy beaches with long periods of standing in place to study the terns. It will be hot with no shade from the sun.

Trip Description:
This trip will focus on studying the terns (primary focus on Common Terns) that nest and visit Nickerson Beach. Nickerson Beach is a unique area, partly designated to protect bird species that are threatened and even endangered, with portions cordoned off for nesting Common Terns, Least Terns, and Piping Plovers.

Access to food and shelter is equally attractive to other avian species, such as local Eastern Willets, Gull-billed Terns, and other migrant terns and shorebirds. We will also be watching for shearwaters and whales on the ocean—on a previous trip, the extremely rare and endangered North Atlantic Right Whale gave us quite a show.

A spotting scope or high-zoom camera is highly recommended because the primary intention of the trip is for each participant to study the terns.

Please read The Linnaean Society of New York COVID-19 Field Trip Guidelines before registering.

Registration: Registration opens at 9 am on Monday, May 26. After that time, click here to register. Registration closes at 6 pm on Monday, June 2.

Please read the About Our Trips page, if you’re going on a field trip for the first time. It details our field trip policies, recommends what to bring on a trip, and offers other useful information, pro tips, and tricks.

If after visiting the About Our Trips page, you still have questions, feel free to contact the Registrar via email.