This meeting and presentation took place both in person at the Linder Theater in the American Museum of Natural History and concurrently online via Zoom.
At 7:02 pm, Board Member and Acting President Peter Davenport called the Society meeting to order.
Peter made the following announcements:
- He noted that this in-person regular members meeting is a return to the Society’s original, longtime home at the American Museum of Natural History after a six-year absence.
- The Society’s 148th annual meeting will be held on March 10, 2026, at the Liederkranz Club at 6 East 87th Street. Dr. Trevor Price of the University of Chicago will be awarded the 2026 Eisenmann Medal and will present, “A Bird’s Life in the Anthropocene.”
- Invitations for the annual meeting have gone out by email; the Society is no longer sending them by mail. It is an in-person, members-only event and will not be broadcast and recorded via Zoom.
- Following the annual meeting, soon after April 10, ballots will be emailed to the Society’s membership to elect the Society’s officers and directors, and to vote on changes to the Society’s bylaws.
- Peter welcomed fifteen new members to the Linnaean Society who joined in January 2026:
- Kitty Allen
- Tom Besser
- Julia Blumenthal
- Ned Boyajian, Jr.
- Caleb Hunt
- Amy Hurst
- Amanda Leath
- Ellen Lepor
- Herbert Lepor
- Richard F Miller
- Brian Moldashel
- Jennifer Mulhearn
- Nancy Newman
- Brian Saville
- Alexander Tepper
- Peter expressed thanks to the nomination committee members for doing a fantastic job recruiting candidates for the board of directors. The committee is still seeking a member to fill the recording secretary vacancy, and he encouraged people to contact him to volunteer or offer suggestions for candidates. He can be reached at the president’s email address. (The president’s email address is on the Society’s website: https://www.linnaeannewyork.org/contacts/.)
- He said that the Society has some fabulous trips scheduled and encouraged the audience to take a look at the calendar. An upcoming event, “Bird Jazz in Harlem,” in the Birds and Brews field trip series, is a concert being performed by Society member Elijah Shiffer and his City of Birds quartet. It is on Wednesday, March 11, the day after the annual meeting.
- The birdathon fundraiser for Great Gull Island is coming soon: May 2 and 3.
- The Society’s birdseed fund for the Central Park feeders is still accepting donations.
- Peter encouraged members to consider joining a committee and to keep an eye out for emails about those opportunities.
At 7:09 pm, Peter turned to the lecture program and welcomed the night’s speaker, Amar Ayyash, gull expert and author of The Gull Guide: North America.
Lecture: “Humans and Gulls: A Complex Relationship,” presented by Amar Ayyash
Starting with an introduction to the bird that graces the front cover of his acclaimed gull book, The Gull Guide: North America,Amar Ayyash launched into a fascinating and riveting discussion about gulls. The bird on the cover is the Black-legged Kittiwake, the most abundant gull in the world, and a favorite of his. We learned that during the breeding season they nest on cliff ledges overlooking the oceans in the far north and that they spend most of the winter over the open ocean. If we are lucky, a few are occasionally seen near us off the Atlantic Coast each winter.
Currently, gulls are grouped taxonomically into eleven genera, and only one of the eleven has not been recorded in North America. Peppering his talk with quiz questions, this was one of the first: “What is that eleventh genus?” The answer stumped the audience and ultimately was revealed in the Q&A at the end of his talk.
Much of Amar Ayyash’s presentation covered ways to approach the identification of gulls, a particularly challenging group of birds of around 50 species. While some species are distinctive, many are difficult to identify because of subtle plumage differences in color and patterns and additionally complicated by plumage changes between and within life cycles. There is also variability in bird size and plumage within species and the added confusion of hybridization, which is especially prevalent among the large white-headed gulls. Using photographs and a pointer, Amar Ayyash carefully identified features to distinguish one gull species from another and interspersed the discussion with interesting information about behavior, migration, hybridization, and personal anecdotes about the birds.
Concluding his talk, Amar Ayyash shared his enthusiasm and love for gulls, saying, “I’ll leave you with this: The next time you encounter a gull flock, I hope that it falls in favor with you.” In the Q&A session, an audience member reminded Amar Ayyash that he would reveal the one genus of gull that has yet to be documented in North America. He gave the audience one last chance to weigh in, and with no takers, he told us: Saunders’s Gull, Saundersilarus saudersi—in the monotypic genus Saundersilarus.
Following is Amar Ayyash’s abstract of his talk:
Among the world’s “seabirds,” gulls are the most accessible to humans, invading our most immediate surroundings. Gulls are sometimes perceived as 2nd class avian creatures. This, along with the identification challenges they present and their readiness to hybridize, presents a love-hate relationship for many birders. Yet some gull species are among the most coveted birds on any birder’s list (think Ross’s, Ivory and Sabine’s Gull). This makes for an interesting juxtaposition: Do we like some gulls and look past others? Amar Ayyash will take us through an entertaining and intriguing exploration of the natural history of gulls, including their thorny taxonomy and identification.
At 8:14 pm, the Q&A session began with questions from both the in-person audience and from those on Zoom.
At the conclusion of the Q&A, Vice President for Programs Karen Becker observed how extraordinary it was that Amar had entranced both gull beginners and gull experts alike, and she thanked him for joining us and giving his talk.
At 8:37 pm the meeting was adjourned.
Amar Ayyash’s presentation and the Q&A session have been recorded in their entirety, along with Board Member and Acting President Peter Davenport’s opening meeting remarks. The recording is available for viewing on the Linnaean Society of New York website under the dropdown menu: Programs/Watch/ and on the Society’s YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/@linnaeanny/videos.
Respectfully submitted by Lisa Kroop, Recording Secretary