By Alan Hopkins 

Located near San Francisco’s southern border, John McLaren Park is the city’s second-largest park. Its 312 acres have well-developed trails that cross rolling hills and provide ample opportunities to see a diversity of birds. Unlike Golden Gate Park and the Presidio, McLaren is not overrun with joggers and cyclists on weekends. Nor is a birding outing likely to be scuttled due to special events and road closures.

John McLaren was the horticulturist who turned the sand dunes of the Sunset District into Golden Gate Park. A friend of John Muir, he believed that our parks should be “naturalistic” in appearance. Unfortunately, some of his vision seems to have been lost in both parks. In parts of McLaren Park, however, it is possible to feel as if you’re out of the city, though great hilltop vistas bring the city into view.

I first visited McLaren Park some time in the 1970s, possibly for the SF Blues Festival or the SFMoMA soapbox derby. The park became a stop on my Bird Blitz field trips on the way to Candlestick Point Park. In 1990 city birders started the San Francisco Breeding Bird Atlas, and McLaren Park was my area. It was also my area for the Christmas Bird Count for a number of years. Now, as a naturalist for Kids in Parks, I am able to take Visitacion Valley Middle School students into the park and give them their first bird-watching experiences.

John F. Shelley Lake / Photo by Alan Hopkins Red-shouldered Hawk in McLaren Park / Photo by Alan Hopkins

The park has changed quite a bit since I first started visiting: California Quail, Loggerhead Shrikes, and Olive-sided Flycatchers are no longer found there, many of the open fields have been planted with trees, and the ponds have been cleared of the tules where Red-winged Blackbirds nested. But there are still plenty of opportunities to enjoy the birds the park has to offer.

McLaren has a number of habitats. Of most interest are the open grassy slopes used by wintering Western Meadowlarks, Say’s Phoebes, and American Kestrels— species becoming harder to find in San Francisco as their preferred habitat is developed or planted. In the spring, the hills support an array of native wildflowers. The ridgeline along Mansell Street is frequented by local and migrating raptors. The park’s northwestern side has been planted with the usual cosmopolitan trees found in other city parks, and the species are similar: Downy Woodpecker, Hutton’s Vireo, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Pygmy Nuthatch, White-crowned Sparrow.…

By Ilana DeBare

Go Bears! Spot that warbler!

That’s a chant you’re unlikely to hear from the packed bleachers of Memorial Stadium during a Cal-Stanford football game.

But it’s a chant we’ll be mouthing silently to ourselves on April 13, when Golden Gate Bird Alliance faces off against Santa Clara Valley Audubon in Birding’s Big Game — the first-ever Cal-versus-Stanford birding competition!

As part of our annual Birdathon fundraising month, a team of U.C. faculty, staff, students, and community members will spend four hours combing the Cal campus in Berkeley to find as many bird species as possible. Our rivals in Santa Clara Valley Audubon will be doing the same thing on the Stanford campus.

How many will we find — 40? 50? more?

“I’m aiming for 50 species,” said Maureen Lahiff, a lecturer in Applied Statistics at the School of Public Health who is leading the Golden Gate Bird Alliance team. “I don’t know if we’ll get there, but we have a good shot.”

Bears go birding!

Mention the U.C. Berkeley campus to most people, and they’re more likely to picture undergrads tossing Frisbees or activists gathering signatures than wrens or flycatchers.

But the campus has been part of GGBA’ Christmas Bird Count circle for decades. It includes a variety of habitats such as creeks, oak hillsides, and redwood groves. It also has a birding jewel in the form of the U.C. Botanical Garden — 34 acres of trees, bushes and flowering plants from around the world.

One of the co-leaders of the Cal birding team on April 12 will be Chris Carmichael, Associate Director of the Botanical Garden, who leads quarterly bird walks there.  If anyone can find birds in the garden, it’s him.

“The nice thing about an April date is that we’ll have the end of wintering birds like Fox Sparrow, while migrants like Black-headed Grosbeaks and Hooded Orioles should also be back by then,” Carmichael said. “One of the treasures of the Garden is California Thrasher, which we find in the upper corner by the roses…. The intersection of natural habitats and the (international) habitats that we create leads to a very rich birding area.”

Joining Lahiff and Carmichael as team leaders will be Erica Rutherford and John Colbert, a graduate of U.C.’s Haas School of Business, who will focus on the parts of campus in Strawberry Canyon but outside the Garden.

They’ll all be birding with students from The Wildlife Society at Berkeley, a new student group that formed just this year.…

By Ilana DeBare

When Lisa Eileen Hern agreed to take part in Golden Gate Bird Alliance’s Birdathon last year, she thought she’d raise $100 … if she were lucky.

She ended up raising $520!

“The response was overwhelming,” said Lisa, a San Francisco resident. “It was mostly from a general posting on Facebook. I didn’t even approach people individually. It was amazing how many people jumped in.”

As Golden Gate Bird Alliance gears up for Birdathon 2014 during April, many members are asking themselves if they have what it takes to fundraise.

Maybe you’re one of them?

You want to help Golden Gate Bird Alliance, you’d love to go on some of the Birdathon trips… but you’ve never really asked people for money. What if they say no? What if they get mad?

Lisa’s story is an inspiring example of someone who didn’t know she could fundraise… until she tried.

Lisa Eileen Hern and an avian friend

A lifelong birder and a longtime member of National Audubon, Lisa got involved with GGBA a few years ago when she wanted to work on behalf of birds locally. She became a Burrowing Owl docent, who monitors and helps passersby learn about the small owls that winter at the Berkeley Marina.

She channeled that owl passion into her request for Birdathon support. And her friends responded.

“One donor, a biologist, said he’d seen my Facebook posts about the Burrowing Owls and thought they were great,” Lisa said. “Another said that her father used to be a big fan of Burrowing owls… Apparently my ramblings about visiting the Burrowing Owls resonated with people.”

This year Lisa is on the volunteer committee that did the planning for Birdathon. The committee came up with a slew of exciting events, such as a field trip led by Rusty Scalf to see California Condors at Pinnacles National Park.

That trip attracted another novice fundraiser, Holly Bern.

Holly had always been fascinated by birds and was a GGBA member. But she had never been to a Golden Gate Bird Alliance event – not a single meeting or field trip.

Holly Bern

When she learned about the Birdathon trip to the Pinnacles, though, she signed up immediately.

“I had turned 50 and was thinking about some kind of challenge like running a marathon,” said Holly, who lives in Oakland. “But it has been on my list for a long time to go see condors at the Pinnacles.…

Editor’s Note: Results have now been finalized for the 2013 Oakland Christmas Bird Count. Here is a summary by CBC Co-Compilers Dave Quady and Bob Lewis.

By Dave Quady and Bob Lewis

The 73rd annual count in summary: fine weather… more observers in the field than ever before… widespread media coverage… just shy of the all-time high species count… one stunning bird, of a species never before recorded on a Northern California CBC… favorable tides… the second-highest number of birds recorded in the last 10 years… and a wonderful compilation dinner, enjoyed by the largest crowd ever. 

The temperature was in the 30s in Oakland’s shaded Redwood Creek Canyon at 2:30 a.m. on Sunday, December 15, 2013, but it rose through the day to the low 60s, as clouds gave way to mostly sunny skies. Winds were moderate, and a mid-morning high tide of 6.3 feet at the Golden Gate enhanced shorebirding opportunities along the bay. What a day to go birding for the annual Oakland CBC sponsored by the Golden Gate Bird Alliance!

Counting in Montclair / Photo by Ilana DeBare The first CBC with the new Bay Bridge in the background! / Photo by Peter Maiden

As usual, count day began with a few hardy birders listening and looking for owls before dawn. Happily, we recorded all five of our usual owl species, led (taxonomically, at least) by the Official Bird of Berkeley: Barn Owl. By day’s end, participants had detected all but one of our 164 “regular” species — those recorded on at least eight of our last ten CBCs. Pine Siskin, the one missing species, has been scarce locally all winter.

Some notable species appeared in several count areas: three House Wrens, three Black-throated Gray Warblers, and two Hermit Warblers were all nice to see or hear. Snow Geese in small numbers have become almost expected recently; one this year extended the pattern. Ross’s Geese are less regular, so single birds in two areas along the bay were most welcome. A flock of 48 white geese over the Oakland hills, too distant to identify by species, was exceeded in size only by 65 Snow Geese in 1985. Other highlights included all-time high counts of four woodpecker and sapsucker species, and the first Lark Sparrows we’ve recorded since 1994.

Barn Owl in a palm tree on Telegraph Avenue – Photo by Bob Lewis

We’ve grown accustomed to Tufted Ducks on Lake Merritt, but the drake found this year remained a fine find.…

By Ilana DeBare

The black cat named Totoro trained his bright yellow eyes on a Chestnut-backed Chickadee singing on a branch. The chickadee was only a few feet away. There was no windowpane between them. The cat could practically reach out and grab the bird.

The bird was safe.

Totoro was in his “catio” – an outdoor enclosure or patio designed to let house cats experience the sights and smells of the outdoor world, while keeping both birds and the cats themselves from harm.

“We have some of the happiest cats,” said Phil Price, a Golden Gate Bird Alliance board member who built the North Berkeley catio where Totoro was sitting. “They love to come out, sniff the air, sleep in the sun, and watch people walking their dogs down the street.”

The tern “catio” is so new that there’s no Wikipedia entry for it yet. It’s not listed in the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

Totoro watching a chickadee / Photo by Ilana DeBare

But the concept is catching on among cat owners who care about birds. Last fall, the Audubon Society of Portland sponsored its first Catio Tour, featuring twelve catios in the Portland, Oregon, area.

The latest scientific studies suggest that outdoor cats – both domestic and feral – kill more than 1 billion birds each year. A single domestic cat typically kills between one and 34 birds each year; one feral cat kills an estimated 23 to 46 birds annually.

Keeping cats indoors is the best way to stop them from killing birds. Keeping cats indoors also helps them stay healthy — safe from hazards like cars, dogs, and fights with other cats.

Catios, meanwhile, are a way to give indoor cats a taste of the outdoors.

Catios can be jaw-droppingly expensive and elaborate. Web sites like CatioShowcase.com feature some cat enclosures that could be mistaken for Hawaiian resorts.

Elaborate Utah catio featured on CatioShowcase.com Resort-like catio in Florida featured on CatioShowcase.com

But catios can also be inexpensive and homemade. That’s the case with Phil Price and Juliet Lamont’s Berkeley cat complex.

Price started out in the late 1990s by building a cage out of plastic PVC pipe and wire mesh on the roof of his garage, accessible through a cat door that he cut in a wall. He installed some potted plants and a cat climbing structure.

Then in 2003, he added an outdoor catwalk – a long wooden plank framed by PVC pipe and wire that stretches from his garage roof to the home of his sister-in-law next door.…