By Ilana DeBare
For the past couple of months, Golden Gate Bird Alliance volunteers have been monitoring the small population of threatened Western Snowy Plovers that have taken up residence on Crown Memorial Beach in Alameda.
Last week, the San Francisco Chronicle picked up the story, with a nice article by Carolyn Jones that featured longtime GGBA activist Leora Feeney and GGBA Executive Director Mike Lynes, as well as East Bay Regional Parks staffer Sharol Nelson-Embry. The Chronicle wrote:
“To the shock of naturalists and bird watchers, a flock of threatened western snowy plovers has taken up residence on one of the Bay Area’s busiest beaches. For the past few months, since the East Bay Regional Park District dumped 82,000 cubic yards of new sand on the beach, the fist-size shorebirds have been skittering across the dunes and pecking at bugs, oblivious to the frolicking hordes around them.
” ‘I was really excited when I heard. There aren’t many of these birds left, and here they are, so easily viewable and accessible,’ said park district naturalist Sharol Nelson-Embry, who works at the nearby Crab Cove Visitor Center.
Snowy Plovers at Alameda / Photo by Calvin Walters, http://calwalters.zenfolio.com/p826151533
GGBA volunteers have been working to point out the plovers to joggers and other passersby, so they can detour and avoid disrupting the birds as they rest and forage.  The Chronicle wrote:

The tan-and-white birds are nearly impossible to see and risk getting trampled by beachgoers and overly enthusiastic dogs. And if the birds decide to stay and nest at Crown Beach this spring, their offspring are highly unlikely to survive, creating what scientists call a “biological sink.”
“The birds would put all this energy into reproducing, and then lose every single baby,” Nelson-Embry said. “For a species that’s struggling, that would be a disaster.”
For now, the district is keeping an eye on the birds and hope they head south to the Hayward shoreline, a favorite nesting spot for the Bay Area’s snowy plovers, by March.

For tiny, threatened birds, the plovers seem remarkably fearless. Birder Calvin Waters photographed some last week, including a plover that had been banded for scientific tracking. With help from the East Bay Birding Yahoo group, Calvin contacted Point Blue (formerly PRBO) and learned about the banded bird’s history.
Snowy Plover with leg band at Alameda / Photo by Calvin Walters, http://calwalters.zenfolio.com/p826151533

…

Mike Lynes, Executive Director of Golden Gate Bird Alliance, will be stepping down from GGBA to become Director of Public Policy for Audubon California on March 10.

We’ll miss Mike but look forward to working with him on statewide conservation issues! Here are letters about the transition from Mike and from Carey Knecht, chair of the GGBA Board of Directors.

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A Letter from Executive Director Mike Lynes

After five years of working with Golden Gate Bird Alliance, I will be moving on – though not going far. Starting on March 10, I will be joining Audubon California as its new Director of Public Policy.

Executive Director Mike Lynes

I’ve been honored to serve at GGBA, an organization with over 95 years’ experience in sharing the joy of knowing Bay Area birds. It has been a great pleasure working with the GGBA community. The passion and knowledge of GGBA’ many dedicated volunteers inspires and humbles me.

Since joining Golden Gate Bird Alliance in 2008, I’ve had the chance to work on many important issues affecting birds in the Bay Area — including wind turbines, human-caused disturbance on the Bay and shoreline, creating bird-safe buildings. In my past year as Executive Director, we’ve continued to expand our education and conservation programs while balancing the budget.

Although I will miss GGBA and its community, I intend to stay connected with the people and partnerships that I worked with here at GGBA. In my new role at Audubon California, I will be promoting policies that help birds throughout California, work that will support vital Bay Area bird populations.

I want to thank everyone who has been so supportive throughout my time here. The successes we’ve achieved would not have been possible without a community effort. I look forward to watching GGBA continue to grow, and continue its great work for birds and people who love them in the Bay Area.

Yours truly,

Mike Lynes

Executive Director 

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A Letter from Board of Directors Chair Carey Knecht

Please join me and the rest of the Board in expressing our great gratitude to Mike for his service, and in wishing him the best as he departs for his next adventure. While we are sad to see Mike go, we are also excited to watch him continue his important work on policies that protect birds and their habitats.

The Board of Directors has already initiated a search for a new Executive Director and intends to recruit and hire one as soon as we can.…

By Ilana DeBare

Cliff Swallows in the North Bay will have a safer nesting season in 2014 – thanks to successful advocacy by Bay Area Audubon chapters and other wildlife lovers.

Golden Gate Bird Alliance and other conservation groups have reached a tentative settlement with Caltrans, in which the state transportation agency will no longer use deadly netting on a Petaluma highway construction project.

Last spring, Caltrans had installed netting on a bridge over the Petaluma River to prevent swallows from nesting there while it expanded Highway 101.

But the netting – meant to keep birds out of the way of construction – in fact was trapping and killing them. Local wildlife advocates documented over 100 dead birds in the nets.

When Caltrans refused to remove the nets, GGBA joined a lawsuit filed by Madrone and Marin Audubon societies, Native Songbird Care and Conservation, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, and the Center for Biological Diversity.

Cliff Swallow trapped in Caltrans netting in 2013 Protestor at bridge site / Photo courtesy of Native Songbird Care & Conservation

Along with the legal action, advocates for the swallows gathered over 30,000 signatures on an online petition.

Now, as part of the proposed settlement, Caltrans has agreed to remove the nets and instead use hard plastic or plywood sheeting to keep birds away from sections of the bridge under construction.  All other parts of the bridge will be available for nesting. Bridge demolition will only take place outside of nesting season.

Caltrans will also meet four times each year with the swallow coalition to review its protective measures, and will provide $4,000 for public education about swallow protection.

The settlement ensures that the Cliff Swallows will find a safer welcome in March when they complete their annual 6,000-mile migration from Argentina. The swallows typically build about 500 nests under the Petaluma River and Lakeville Overpasses bridges.

The parties to the settlement, including the GGBA board, are scheduled to approve the agreement in the next few weeks.

This is a victory for Cliff Swallows. But it wouldn’t have happened without on-the-ground activism by North Bay groups like Madrone Audubon and Native Songbird Care…  coordinated advocacy by all the wildlife conservation groups in the lawsuit… and the thousands of emails, letters and petition signatures from grassroots bird lovers like YOU!

Thank you for standing up for the swallows with us.

These five-inch birds manage to travel 6,000 miles to build their nests.…

By Audre Newman

It was a king tide on the last beautiful day of 2013.  Many bird watchers were crowding the shore to see birds that are hard to find at lower tide levels.  The bay was as smooth as glass.  A thousand willets and marbled godwits, a heron, and a platoon of black-necked stilts watched us from their ringside seats on the pier.

Between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. we collected eight bags of plastics, Styrofoam, paper, and metal, in the form of cups, cans, bags, wrappers, etc. The strangest item found was part of a white-washed lattice fence.  The nicest was a pair of high-quality knee pads.  I won’t mention the most disgusting item.

“We” were a small group of 11 nature lovers from Golden Gate Bird Alliance, Ashby Village, and some friends. We took kayaks and canoes into the marsh to clean floating trash out of the grasses.

Keith Miller at California Canoe and Kayak generously provided free canoes and kayaks for the project.  Anthony Decicco of Golden Gate Bird Alliance provided scooping and collecting equipment, as well as yummy put-in snacks. Denny Bader and Roger Newman provided boat transport.  Audre Newman did the organizing and recruiting. Sherry Keith, Robert Girling, Lisa Esherick, Jenny Feng, Mrs. Feng, Mike and Peggy Tavare rounded out the crew.

Trash from Arrowhead Marsh and the volunteers who collected it!

It was a delight to be out on the water on such a gorgeous day, and to be making Arrowhead marsh a healthier habitat for the local wildlife.  It was a great way to ring out the old year!

Thanks to all the people mentioned above for taking part in the 2^nd Biennial Canoe and Kayak Clean-up of Arrowhead Marsh.…

By Ilana DeBare

Volunteering with Golden Gate Bird Alliance typically conjures up images of outdoor activities – people leading bird walks, introducing Eco-Ed students to nature, cleaning up beaches and marshes.

Well, what about bookkeeping? Updating membership records? Mailing out bird calendars?

GGBA has always had office volunteers. But over the past year – since budget cuts forced us to lay off our full-time office manager last spring – those volunteers have become increasingly central to our operations.

Here’s a look at three of our most dedicated office volunteers. They each have different motivations and different levels of interest or experience in birding. But they all treat their commitment as seriously as a paying job. We couldn’t get by without them!

Peter Crews

Peter is not a birder! But he was making a mid-life career transition out of carpentry into bookkeeping and needed some real-world experience to round out his newly-acquired A.A. degree in accounting.

“I found some online listings of nonprofits, including groups working with animals,” he said. “When I contacted them, GGBA and the Humane Society responded.”

Volunteer bookkeeper Peter Crews

Peter started a year ago, entering donations into our membership records database. When we had to lay off our office manager, he added the tasks of entering donations and membership payments into QuickBooks too. He works two days per week.

“It’s kind of grunt work, but realistically when I get a job, it will be as an assistant bookkeeper so this is good practice,” he said.

His goals? A job doing bookkeeping in retail – ideally for a lumberyard or construction firm so he could also tap into his carpentry background. And then some free time to… try birding.

“I have an informal queue of things I’d like to do once I get work and get settled,” he said. “The first is reestablish a social life. But birding is in there too.”

Susan Reneau

Susan started at GGBA last March after retiring from her paid career as a technology program manager at U.C. Berkeley.

Retirement meant more time to learn about the birds in her backyard, including enrolling in GGBA’ Beginning Birding class. It also meant a chance to give something back to the local community – thus her office role.

“GGBA is a very worthwhile cause,” Susan said. “I asked myself, What can I do to assist an organization that is doing something worthwhile?”

Office volunteers Susan Reneau and Linda Vallee

Susan puts in five to six hours each week — answering the phone, updating membership records, and helping with mailings.…