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THE WILSON JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY • Vol 124. No. 3. September 2012 
(objective I) and for selecting potential sites to 
examine for presence of Laughing Gulls (objec¬ 
tive 2). 
We obtained the New York State Official Tidal 
Wetlands Inventory from the NYSDEC. Geo- 
referenced salt marsh maps for Long Island were 
extracted using G1S (ArcGIS 9.2: ESRI. Red¬ 
lands. CA. USA). These maps provided an 
estimate ol all salt marsh intertidal zone habitats 
available to nesting Laughing Gulls. Much of the 
~445 km of Long Island's shoreline is developed, 
although coastal wetland habitats (e.g., salt marsh) 
remain in some areas (Gornitz el al. 2002). The 
largest concentrations of intertidal salt marsh 
occur on the south shore, although small areas 
occur on the north shore. 
We combined all records (e.g.. Laughing Gull 
nesting records, observations, and salt marsh 
inventory) into a spatially-referenced electronic 
data base using GIS. We identified and selected 
66 individual sites that represented potential 
locations where Laughing Gulls might be nesting 
on Long Island based on the information in our 
electronic data base (Fig. I). 
Field Surrey .*.—We conducted field surveys 
during daylight hours at all 66 individual sites 
(Fig. I) during 9-20 June 2008. We chose this 
time period to coincide with the expected peak 
nesting period for Laughing Gulls (Montevecchi 
et al. 1979. Burger 1996). Two or more trained 
individuals systematically observed all visible 
habitats during the survey at each location with 
the aid of binoculars and spotting scopes from all 
available vantage points. The number of Laughing 
Gull nests, number of Laughing Gulls observed bv 
age class (individual Laughing Gulls were as¬ 
signed to age classes based on plumage [Belant 
and Dolbeer I996|), and specific activities of all 
Laughing Gulls observed were recorded dunng 
each field survey. General observations were 
recorded regarding the presence/absence of sail 
marsh habitat, Spartina , and the perceived poten¬ 
tial value of the location for nesting by Laughing 
Gulls based on the characteristics of the vegeta¬ 
tion and hydrology. 
RESULTS 
We found no records or information to verity 
that Laughing Gulls were actively breeding in the 
State of New York from 1900 to the late 1970s 
(Eaton 1910. Griscom 1923. Bull 1964). Howev¬ 
er. accounts from this period suggested large 
numbers of Laughing Gulls in breeding plumage 
were observed on Long Island (Griscom 1923. 
Cruickshank 1942. Bull 1964). 
Laughing Gulls began breeding (again) in Neu 
York State during the late 1970s after a nearly 8 (| - 
year absence, Buckley et al. (1978) reported the 
first breeding record of Laughing Gulls in the 
state since 1900 in Nassau County (Fig. 2). Pnsi 
and Ricpe (1980) found a Laughing Gull nesting 
colony (15 pairs) in 1978 in the Joco Marsh island 
