我在纽约郊区长大,那里有很多小草坪和零星分散的公园,但我的夏天大多数都是在纽约北部的农村度过的,漫步在森林中。在那里发现的生物让我着迷,因此,我来到大学学习生物学。一个夏天,我在长岛海峡大鸥岛(康涅狄格州海岸附近)的野外台站待了两周时间,为燕鸥套标记环。我在那里度过的时光仿佛种下了一颗种子,这颗种子此后成长为一份颇有价值的职业,最终将我带回了森林。大鸥岛属于美国自然历史博物馆(AMNH),此前 I grew up on the outskirts of New York with many lawns and sporadic parks, but most of my summer was spent in the countryside of northern New York, walking through the woods. The creatures found there fascinated me, so I came to college to study biology. One summer, I spent two weeks in a field station on the Long Island Strait, Big Island (near the Connecticut coast), marking the rings for the terns. The time I spent there seems to have planted a seed, which later grew to a worthwhile occupation that eventually brought me back to the forest. Big Island belongs to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), after