Joan Walsh has studied birds for more than 30 years. Her interest began in the late 1970s on Great Gull Island in New York, learning about Common and Roseate Terns and continued on to Wood Storks in Georgia, and seabirds and Elephant Seals on the Farallon Islands. She is also the author of The Birds of New Jersey(1999) and is currently the Director of Bird Monitoring at Mass Audubon.