This very special evening featured a private screening of the documentary Full Circle with a talk by Executive Producer Anne Via McCollough. Full Circle provides an intimate view of the Great Gull Island Project. The largest Common Tern colony in the world and the largest Roseate Tern colony in the Western Hemisphere are both found on this 17-acre island in Long Island Sound. Under the direction of Helen Hays since 1969, the team at Great Gull Island monitors the nesting sites of Common and Roseate Terns. The film also shows the contribution of individual ornithologists and communities in Brazil, Argentina, and the Azores to documenting migration routes of the terns.
Since 2005, Anne Via McCollough has been volunteering in the Department of Ornithology at the American Museum of Natural History, working in Collections for Paul Sweet. During her years at the Museum, Anne learned about the Great Gull Island Project and volunteered—marking nests—on the island in 2013. Her association with Helen Hays showed her first-hand the value of long-term scientific fieldwork. In February 2016, Anne started Taking Flight Productions with Ethan Ferkiss. They began filming in April 2016 with photographer Phillip Townsend and were joined by photographer Michael Male in 2018.
The Linnaean Society of New York was honored to host a private screening of Anne Via McCollough’s film, Full Circle, at our meeting on April 13, 2021. Our archive includes Ken Chaya, our president, conducting our monthly members’ meeting on April 13, and the post-screening Q&A hosted by Vice President Gabriel Willow, with Anne Via McCollough, Michael Male, Joseph DiCostanzo, and Helen Hays.
Full Circle, is available to view on demand on many cable networks, as well as several platforms such as Amazon Prime, iTunes, Vimeo, YouTube and others.