By Ilana DeBare
Golden Gate National Recreation Area is a national treasure, some 80,000 acres of wild coastland in the middle of our very urban San Francisco Bay Area.
It is also the center of a political battle – between uncompromising dog advocates and people who believe the GGNRA should balance the interests of wildlife, dog owners, and visitors who want a dog-free nature experience.
The National Park Service is currently undertaking a long-overdue process of updating its GGNRA dog management policies to provide a more balanced approach.
Golden Gate Bird Alliance supports the proposed new policies as an improvement over the status quo, where a combination of outmoded rules and lax enforcement allows dogs to run uncontrolled through important wildlife areas like Ocean Beach and Crissy Field.
But San Francisco dog activists are mounting a loud, emotional campaign against the new policies, which they call a “plan to get rid of people with dogs” and an “attack on all recreational use and access on GGNRA land.”
If you care about wildlife and a healthy balance of uses within the GGNRA, the National Park Service needs to hear from you.
The Park Service is accepting comments until February 18^h.  Click here to file a comment online.
Crissy Lagoon at the GGNRA, which provides year-round habitat for birds / Photo by David Assmann

Background

The roots of the dog conflict go back to the formation of the GGNRA in 1972. The new national park was formed from a variety of public and private lands, all of which had different policies about dogs. As a result, GGNRA became the ONLY national park in the country to allow unleashed dogs.
The hodge-podge of grandfathered-in rules continued until 1979 when the National Park Service adopted a Pet Policy aimed at governing where dogs were allowed, both on-leash and off-leash.
But the 1979 policy was quickly overwhelmed as the Bay Area’s population grew and the number of visitors – both with and without dogs – skyrocketed.
Some parts of the GGNRA became so thick with dogs that they were essentially giant dog runs. Off-leash dogs threatened the colonies of endangered Western Snowy Plovers at Ocean Beach and Crissy Field.  Park staff spent more and more time managing conflicts between dogs and people, dogs and wildlife, and among dogs themselves.
Western Snowy Plover resting in the dunes at Crissy Field / Photo by Matt Zlatunich
In 2008, the NPS filed almost 900 pages of Criminal Incident Records involving dogs in the GGNRA, many of which involved dogs chasing and harassing wildlife.…

By Marissa Ortega-Welch
As an educator for Golden Gate Bird Alliance,  I’m always searching for great books about birds to share with my students. I’ll admit I’m very picky. The books have to teach a concept but still be easy to read (3rd grade reading level). They should be factually-based but still entertaining, with good illustrations. And here’s my real pet peeve – they can’t be too East Coast-centric in the birds represented.
Here are a few gems I’ve discovered recently and shared with my students. They’d make good holiday gifts for the young birders in anyone’s life.

Falcons in the City, written and illustrated by Lisa Manning.

Told from the perspective of “Frida,” a juvenile Peregrine Falcon, this book is based on the true story of a Peregrine Falcon nest on the Fremont Bridge in Portland, Oregon. Frida talks young readers through the life of an urban Peregrine and the exciting moment when she and her siblings fledge. Her brothers end up in the Williamette River and are rescued by birders who have been watching the nest (one of them sporting an “Audubon” shirt).
Falcons in the City
Frida also explains how Peregrine Falcons have made a remarkable comeback from near extinction. The illustrations are warm and child-friendly; the story is readable for beginner readers; and young birders will be excited to learn that this is a true story and very similar to the Peregrine Falcon nests we have here in the Bay Area. Maybe someone here could write a short story about our Peregrines fledging from the Fruitvale Avenue bridge in Oakland?

What Makes a Bird a Bird? by May Garelick. Illustrated by Trish Hill.

May Garelick’s book talks readers through questioning what makes a bird a bird: Is it a bird because it flies? Is it a bird because it has wings? Because it builds a nest? Lays eggs? Sings?
What Makes A Bird A Bird?
She introduces readers to a variety of birds that appear to be the exception to what we commonly think of as birds – penguins and ostriches that can’t fly and oystercatchers that don’t build nests. It’s an interesting question for even us adults to ponder: What is the one thing common to all birds that sets them apart from other animals? Read Garelick’s book if you can’t figure it out.

She’s Wearing a Dead Bird on Her Head, by Kathryn Lasky.

…

By Pipi Ray Diamond

On a bright sunny day in mid-November, about 25 mostly-teenage Golden Gate Bird Alliance volunteers gather for three hours to dig holes, put in plants, water, and cover the bare ground with mulch.

Kisha Mitchell-Mellor, the leader of the restoration effort, explains that they are putting in native plants partly to block the view of large, ugly pieces of concrete at the water’s edge. The plants also serve as cover for sparrows, Marsh Wrens, and endangered birds like the California Clapper Rail. Mitchell-Mellor was a geography major in college but is self-taught on most of the native plants, which have colorful common names such as western goldenrod, lizard’s tail, and sticky monkey-flower.

It is a peaceful day at Arrowhead Marsh, part of Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline in Oakland. The pier that extends into the marsh has fallen into disrepair and is not accessible to the public, which makes it a popular spot for resting birds. Willets, Marbled Godwits, Snowy Egrets and one Great Egret are all sharing the pier with minimal squabbling when a Northern Harrier comes into view. The willets and godwits scatter while the egrets stand their ground. The raptor swoops low and does a tour of the entire marsh in less than a minute. After it is gone, the birds resettle on the pier. This everyday bird drama is easy to view from the trail.

Arrowhead Marsh pier with Fruitvale Bridge in the background / Photo by Pipi Ray Diamond

Golden Gate Bird Alliance has been organizing volunteers to restore habitat at MLK Shoreline for over a decade.  In 2012, over 164 people hoisted shovels, rakes and trash bags at monthly work days; in 2013, there so far have been more than 275 volunteers.

Some are individual GGBA members who understand the importance of habitat to healthy bird populations, while others are part of community groups that want to do something good for the local environment.  Today’s groups include Alameda’s Chinese Christian High School Leo Club and Fremont’s Irvington High School. Other organizational participants this year have included volunteers from Outdoor Afro, Safeway, PG&E, Girl Scouts, Ohio State University, the Sigma Phi Omega chapter at U.C. Berkeley, and many others.

Volunteer Martin Rochin watering native plants / Photo by Pipi Ray Diamond

One of today’s volunteers is Martin Rochin, an East Oakland resident and former intern with Golden Gate Bird Alliance.…

By Phila Rogers
After 61 years in my house on the hillside above Strawberry Canyon in Berkeley, living elsewhere seemed inconceivable.  The live oak I planted 50 years ago had become the roof over my roof.  It sheltered me and countless other creatures.  In its youth, a wintering Red-bellied Sapsucker had decorated its young limbs with bracelets of holes that remained, elongated, as the branchlets grew to substantial branches.
I knew the direction and possible meaning of every breeze.  I registered the moist arrival of the summer fog bank without looking outside.  When the Varied Thrush piped its eerie song, I knew that October had arrived, and when the wintering Hermit Thrush softly sang its summer song in April, I knew it was about to leave.
Can such intimate knowing ever be achieved in a new location with so few years remaining to me?
Santa Barbara should have felt familiar when I moved there in September, as it had been the home of my grandparents and parents.  The retirement home where I was to live is located near Oak Park along Mission Creek, two blocks from where my father grew up.
He told me stories about Mission Creek sometimes flooding after a winter storm, and how the pale owl who lived in the palm outside his bedroom winter frightened him.  When I visit the park now in November, the piles of bone-dry boulders look as if water never flowed there.
A bone-dry Mission Creek at Ocean Park / Photo by Phila Rogers
To try and establish a bond to this new place, I joined a bird walk at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden up in Mission Canyon.  Like the U.C. Botanical Garden in Berkeley, this garden is located in the upper reaches of a canyon near a stream’s headwater.
I was heartened (overjoyed actually) to discover White and Golden-crowned Sparrows both singing.  And as always, I enjoyed the bright colors of the Spotted Towhee.  In general the birds seemed more like the ones you would expect to see over the hill in Contra Costa County with noisy Acorn Woodpeckers storing their acorns in their “granaries.”
Acorn Woodpecker / Photo by Bob Lewis
Absent were the familiar Chestnut-backed Chickadees, Red-breasted Nuthatches, Fox Sparrows, and Brown Creepers.  You are just as apt to hear a Canyon Wren as a Bewick’s Wren, and much less likely to hear a Pacific Wren, which favors damper canyons.…