Project History

Dr. Ellis and long-time volunteer for the gull project, Bill Clark.

Dr. Julie Ellis began banding Herring Gulls and Great Black-Backed Gulls on Appledore Island, Maine as part of her PhD research. Since the inception of the gull banding project in 2004, several collaborators and numerous students have contributed to the banding efforts, and have carried out their own independent research projects involving the gulls.

Bill Clark has been volunteering with the project since nearly its very start, and now handles all reports to volunteers reporting bands. Bill gives detailed life histories to everyone who sends in a band. It’s a remarkable amount of (unpaid and largely unsung) labor and without Bill’s diligence, we know we would not have the cadre of dedicated volunteer band re-sighters we do.

Coordination of the project has since been turned over to Sarah Courchesne and Mary Everett. Sarah is trained as a veterinarian and is an Associate Professor of Natural Sciences at Northern Essex Community College in Massachusetts. She began volunteering for the project in 2008. Mary is currently a student at UMass-Lowell and has substantial expertise is GIS and mapping. She was a summer intern on the gull project in the internship’s inaugural year of 2016 and has been involved in the project since 2015.

Sarah Courchesne in full field attire.

Mary Everett at work mapping nests.

Appledore gulls have been re-sighted by members of the public as far south as Florida and as far west as Texas. This research relies on people like you–birders, beachgoers, casual observers, to report banded birds!