This meeting and presentation took place both in person at the Liederkranz Club and concurrently online via Zoom.
At 7:00 pm, Board Member Peter Davenport called the Society meeting to order.
Peter made the following announcements:
- Next month’s meeting is on Monday, December 8th—not on the customary second Tuesday of the month. It will again be held at the Liederkranz Club at 6 East 87th Street and concurrently online via Zoom.
- He welcomed the new (October, 2025) members to the Linnaean Society:
- Matt Beck
- Isaac Brooks
- Michelle DeFeo
- Giselle Mora
- Lisa Schwartz
- Shelly Xiong
- He reminded members to pay their membership dues if they haven’t already done so. He noted that dues help to pay for the in-person meetings, the Society’s web-related services, and more.
- Editor Debbie Becker is welcoming contributions for the next Society newsletter. Her email address is on the Society website at https://www.linnaeannewyork.org/contacts/
- Peter welcomed all to come to the upcoming hawk watch. It is scheduled for this Friday, November 14, 2025, at Belvedere Castle in Central Park, and is being led by Gabriel Willow.
At 7:03 pm, Peter turned to the lecture program and welcomed the night’s speaker, Dr. Jean-Francois (JF) Therrien. He is the scientific director at the Tadoussac Bird Observatory in Quebec, Canada, and the graduate study director and senior scientist at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Kempton, PA.
Lecture: “Reverse Migration and the Extraordinary Migration Events at Tadoussac, Quebec, Canada,” presented by Dr. Jean-François Therrien
Dr. Therrien began by introducing the audience to Tadoussac, Quebec, a place with special geographic attributes that make it an important location for bird observation and research. It is approximately 130 miles northeast of Quebec City, on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River at its confluence with the Saguenay River. The waters are rich with sea life because of upwelling effects which draw in many species of waterbirds. Sand dunes and cliffs go down to the shore, and boreal forests are just beyond. It is along a major bird migration flyway, and the Tadoussac Bird Observatory is located here.
Much of the Tadoussac Bird Observatory’s research focus is on bird migration, with a special interest in boreal species. There is a hawk watch program, and Dr. Therrien showed a slide with the raptor tallies from this fall’s migration as of November 1, 2025. He noted that the raptor species count distribution is somewhat different from what is seen in our region—for example, not many vultures are seen there, but Tadoussac counters have recorded 49 Northern Goshawks thus far this year, a number which is unheard of around here. In addition to observational counting, there are bird banding monitoring programs (including nocturnal banding of Boreal and Saw-whet Owls) and tracking studies using Motus transmitters. Dr. Therrien explained that they are tracking ten boreal species from Quebec to southern wintering grounds. His slide showed the ten species: 1) Northern Saw-whet Owl, 2) Horned Lark, 3) Gray-checked Thrush, 4) Swainson’s Thrush, 5) American Pipit, 6) Purple Finch, 7) Rusty Blackbird, 8) Blackpoll Warbler, 9) Pine Grosbeak, and 10) Pine Siskin.
On May 28, 2018, an extraordinary bird migration event was observed at Tadoussac Bird Observatory. Dr. Therrien showed examples of cover stories in the press at that time, including one from The New York Times, and then described what happened that day. Over half a million warblers turned around in their northern migration and flew southwest. Dr. Therrien displayed an eBird report. He explained that Ian Davis wrote a detailed description of the group’s observations and that some people refer to this eBird report as The List. Dr. Therrien noted some of the high counts, rounding off the numbers from the eBird list: “72,000 Tennessee Warblers, 50,000 American Redstarts, 100,000 Cape May Warblers, and the numbers keep going—Magnolia, Bay-breasted…” He explained that since that 2018 event, the Tadoussac Bird Observatory has been formally monitoring this phenomenon, and has been developing a protocol for how to count and identify these massive streams of birds. Why this phenomenon happens is still being studied and analyzed.
Dr. Therrien concluded his talk and welcomed all to come to visit the Tadoussac Bird Observatory. He described the bird festival that is held there every September and noted that the weather is very nice at that time, with a good diversity of birds: “…literally 23-to-24-hour birding; songbirds in the morning; the raptor count; pelagic tours; owl banding at night almost to sunrise…There’s something for everyone.”
Following is Dr. Therrien’s abstract of his talk:
The Tadoussac Bird Observatory is located on a major migratory flyway in eastern North America. It witnesses annually hundreds of thousand raptors, songbirds and waterfowl transiting through the site from their breeding grounds across the boreal forest and arctic tundra to wintering grounds across the Americas and back. Beside spectacular Autumn flights, the site is also known for the spectacular Spring reverse migration events where a literal “River of Warblers” make migratory correction movements en route to their boreal breeding grounds. The presentation will provide an overview of research and monitoring activities going on at the Tadoussac Bird Observatory with a focus on the extraordinary migration events happening at the site.
At 7:40 pm, Vice President for Programming Karen Becker hosted the Q&A session with questions from both the in-person audience and from those on Zoom.
At the conclusion of the Q&A, Karen Becker thanked Dr. Therrien for sharing a delightful evening with us—the presentation was fascinating, exciting, and inspiring.
At 8:00 pm the meeting was adjourned.
Dr. Therrien’s presentation and the Q&A session have been recorded in their entirety, along with Board Member 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