By Jack Dumbacher
In recent months, I’ve seen and heard many Band-tailed Pigeons around my house in Marin. Their burst of slapping wing beats can surprise me if I flush them from a low perch, or I might hear their resounding call drifting down from a perch high in the redwoods. I always appreciate hearing or seeing them, as their populations overall have been in decline for many years.
These pigeons have posed a conservation puzzle. Although their populations have been declining at a rate of about 2.8-3.0 percent range-wide for multiple decades, no one has known the reason why [1]. Just to put that into perspective, a 2.8 percent decline will reduce a population to under one quarter of its original size in 50 years time. And Band-tailed populations are already much lower than historical numbers, although no reliable data exists to say just how much.
In 1913, U.C. Berkeley’s own Joseph Grinnell wrote an article for The Cooper Ornithological Society’s journal, the Condor, about the bleak future of the Band-tailed Pigeon as a game bird in the western United States [2]. In fact, the Band-tailed Pigeon offers striking parallels with the Passenger Pigeon. They lay a single egg, they follow boom-and-bust cycles of acorns and other fruits, there are certain times of year – mostly winter – when they congregate in large numbers, and it is difficult to predict exactly where the larger winter flocks will reside.
Band-tailed Pigeon in Sonoma County by Ingrid Taylar
In the winter of 1911-1912, the birds were so common in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara that hunters arrived by trainloads and hunted the birds, Passenger Pigeon style. The concern of W. Lee Chambers [3], Grinnell, and others led to a ban on hunting that lasted until the early 1930s.
As the numbers began to rebound, farmers complained of crop damage and continued to hunt them. Especially in winter, flocks would appear large and destructive in California, mostly because the bulk of the western races (Patagioenas fasciata monilis) would gather and overwinter here. However, there was little evidence that they actually damaged crops during these months [1]. Band-tailed Pigeons are still legal to hunt in California, but limits are low and this is not believed to have a negative impact on their population.
We now know why the Band-tailed Pigeon’s biology resembles the Passenger Pigeon’s: They turn out to be each other’s closest genetic relatives.…

Golden Gate Bird Alliance is part of the Bay Area Osprey Coalition, a new group working to protect and educate the public about the growing number of Ospreys nesting along San Francisco Bay. We co-sponsored the second annual SF Bay Osprey Festival in June at Mare Island (Vallejo), and are working to encourage bayside property owners to install nesting platforms. The San Jose Mercury/Contra Costa Times ran an excellent story this week on the spread of nesting Ospreys to the Bay. We’re reprinting some excerpts below (including a quote from GGBA Executive Director Cindy Margulis), but you can read the entire story on the San Jose Mercury web site.

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By Denis Cuff, Contra Costa Times

RICHMOND — The osprey, a fierce and powerful fishing bird, used to be just another San Francisco Bay shoreline visitor, flying over and feeding without setting down roots.

These days, however, the acrobatic divers are becoming natives, constructing elaborate stick nests on cranes, poles or other man-made structures. Ospreys nested in 21 places around the bay shorelines this year and 17 last year, up sharply from a single active nest in the early 1990s. Most of the new nests are in the East and North Bay.
Osprey pair at Chevron nesting platform in Richmond / Photo by Tony Brake
Osprey in Richmond with prey / Photo by Elaine Miller Bond, www.elainemillerbond.com
Before that, ospreys steered clear of the bay, preferring to nest in areas far north of the Bay Area, or inland, especially near lakes. Scientists aren’t sure why the raptors have made the move. They speculate it may have something to do with changes in bay water quality, clarity and abundance of fish. Or it may have something to do with bald eagles — another species on the upswing — crowding ospreys out of their prime nest spots near lakes in the North Bay. “We don’t have all the answers, but the nesting territory is a significant change that has occurred in a relatively short period of time,” said Tony Brake, a volunteer bird monitor with the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory.

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Although osprey populations were once threatened because of DDT contamination, the birds now prosper in many areas, living on every continent except Antarctica. They migrate through or winter in the Bay Area, and they have nested in the past around Lexington Reservoir near Los Gatos and Kent Lake in western Marin County.…

By Anthony DeCicco 
Imagine you are a Golden-crowned Sparrow. You hatched in 2013 on the shrubby lowland tundra of Middleton Island, about 80 miles off the coast of Alaska. You were banded on September 15 of the same year, and eventually you make your natural journey southward along the Pacific Flyway.
You stop along forest edges, shrubs, chaparral, and backyards for about 2000 miles until you come to the garden at Verde Elementary School in North Richmond, California. Its lush habitat is alluring, and you stop to rest in a Coast live oak. The view south looks promising as you fly quickly from the oak’s branches – but what appeared to be a sunny horizon and more trees turn out to be reflections from a large classroom window. You collide. The impact is too much, and flapping wildly, you fall and pass away at the base of the oak.
The third graders in our Eco-Education program found “Goldie” and noticed the tiny metal “ring” on its leg on January 10, during their initial schoolyard habitat survey. We reported details of the band to the U.S. Geological Survey, which sent the students a certificate with details of the bird’s banding:

“This record is actually quite unique and documents one of the longest movements for Golden-crowned Sparrow in our database.”

It is estimated that a billion birds die annually in North America as a result of window collisions like Goldie’s.
The children were both fascinated and sad. They wanted to help prevent future window strikes but were at a loss for solutions.
Fortunately their interest coincided with a pilot program GGBA had been starting to develop in Richmond this year – creating “Bird-Friendly Schools.”
GGBA Eco-Education staff helped the children create a flock of beautiful bird silhouettes and place them on school windows.
Applying silhouettes to prevent collisions at Verde Elementary School / Photo by Anthony DeCicco
Next school year, these students can serve as advocates for other steps that would help transform Verde Elementary into a Bird-Friendly School, such as:

• Treatments on all key windows.
• More native flora habitat.
• Placement of monitored and appropriate feeders.
• Installation of nest boxes for Western Bluebirds, Chestnut-backed Chickadees and (possibly) Barn Owls.
• Advocating for a ban on pesticides and rodenticides and for adoption of a “lights out” policy on school grounds.

Elsewhere in Richmond, Eco-Education students at Lake Elementary were also busy taking bird-friendly action this year.…