By Erica Rutherford
It started as an exercise routine. In the spring of 2009, my partner John Colbert and I began a daily brisk climb up the Claremont Canyon trail starting at Stonewall Road and ending at Panoramic Way, a 750-foot elevation gain in a distance of roughly 3/4 mile. Once at the top, we enjoyed the views and exploring various connecting trails at a more leisurely pace.
One day on reaching the top of the hill, John excitedly pointed out a singing California Thrasher perched atop a pine tree not 15 feet away. Although I’d never seen or heard of this bird before, its warbled song would over time become a frequent and familiar accompaniment on our hikes.
In the fall of that same year, we enrolled in Denise Wight’s Birding by Ear class offered by the Golden Gate Bird Alliance. Her teachings and those of other instructors have forever changed and enriched our outdoor experiences. I did not realize then that we would come to know the year-round residents of Claremont Canyon so well and happily anticipate its seasonal inhabitants and stopovers.
View of Claremont Canyon and the bay from Panoramic Ridge / Photo by Ken Cheetham/bapd.org/hamilton-gulch-long-sequence.html
California Thrasher at Claremont Canyon / Photo by John Colbert

Historical and Geographic Context

Claremont Canyon Regional Preserve came into being as a result of community activism in the 1970s that advocated for preservation of the Claremont watershed. The East Bay Regional Park District acquired the first 80 acres just east of U.C.’s Clark Kerr Campus in 1978, and later supplemented this acreage with acquisitions from individual landowners. The purchase of a 64-acre parcel including most of Gwin Canyon completed the preserve.
In earlier days, Claremont Canyon served as both a mail route for the Pony Express and a corridor for transcontinental telegraph lines, as well as a transportation route for horse and wagon travel between Oakland and Contra Costa County. At present, Claremont Canyon Regional Preserve is best known for its hiking/running trails and spectacular views of Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco, the bay, and even the Farallones.
The first known inhabitants of the region were the Huchiun Ohlone Indians. The Huchiun inhabited the East Bay from Oakland to Richmond. They traveled between villages living off the land and used the canyon as a thoroughfare to valleys east in Contra Costa County.
Situated behind the Claremont Hotel, Claremont Canyon Regional Preserve is part of a larger 500-acre watershed for Claremont Creek.…

UPDATE:  As our compilers continue to review data from the count, it now seems like the total number of species sighted was 182, not 184. But there is more study under way. We’ll have final results in February.
By Ilana DeBare
The 73rd annual Oakland Christmas Bird Count  on Sunday brought beautiful weather, beautiful birds, and a record number of species — thanks to our friend the Painted Redstart.
About 250 people had signed up to count birds in the field or in their backyards, our biggest turnout ever.
And – even though we won’t have final results for another month or two – the preliminary count for the day was 184 species. That breaks last year’s record of 183!
One of those species was the Painted Redstart that had been found in an oak tree in a  Berkeley backyard in mid-November. The redstart drew birders and bird photographers from all over the Bay Area for a couple of weeks, a local avian celebrity.
But would the redstart be here for the CBC? Things didn’t look good when, five days before the count, in the midst of last week’s cold snap… it vanished.
Count compilers Dave Quady and Bob Lewis sent a team over to Woolsey Street on Sunday morning just to scout for the bird. They were prepared to stay as long as it took, all day if necessary.
But there it was, in its familiar oak tree.
“The group basically walked up to it first thing in the morning,” said Dave Quady. “Let’s hope it makes it through the winter and further.”
Gathering at San Pablo Dam Reservoir at sunrise – before the day started to warm up / Photo by Ilana DeBare
Barn Owl in palm tree on Telegraph Avenue / Photo by Bob Lewis
Among other highlights of the day (besides an absence of sideways rain):

• A “Vega” form of Herring Gull and a Glaucous Gull, which shared the rare bird award for the day.
• A Swainson’s Thrush, unusual for this time of year, reported in Moraga.
• A Golden Eagle sighted eating a jackrabbit in Alameda.
• Two separate pairs of Ruby-crowned Kinglets that were spotted wrestling, talon to talon.
• Five river otters in the Briones Reservoir. (Okay, they’re not birds, but they are darn cool.)

Counting along the Emeryville shoreline / Photo by Peter Maiden

As Dave  reported on the East Bay Birds email list:

Other unusual species participants were happy to find included a handful of Snowy Plovers along the Alameda shoreline, a single Ruddy Turnstone that flew over San Leandro Bay, Surfbirds along Emeryville’s rocky shoreline, and three Red Knots at the end of the Albany Bulb.

By Raunak Bhinge
In spite of the large number of people using Cesar Chavez Park at the Berkeley Marina, the Burrowing Owls have again returned to winter in the northeast corner of the park. Just one day after Golden Gate Bird Alliance’s Burrowing Owl docent training session in late September, our youngest docent (age nine) spotted the first owl of the season.
All the new docents – including me – flocked to the park’s Art Installation Area to spot the new “Art” owl and talk about it to the public.  The second owl flew in more than a month later. Currently there are three owls, two at the Art Installation and one closer to I-80 near the Tom Bates soccer fields.
Many regular park visitors are aware of the wintering Burrowing Owls and start looking for the feathered arrivals each October. Other people read the signs that describe the owls and look for them but don’t see them. Still others walk past the Art Installation without knowing anything about our owl visitors. When docents are present, they provide these people with stunning views of the owls through scopes, binoculars and powerful cameras.
Burrowing Owl at Cesar Chavez Park / Photo by Doug Donaldson
This is why people need docents to help spot the owls! Photo by Doug Donaldson
November had many cold wintry days, and the gusty breeze at the marina only escalated the chill. The owls hunkered down in their burrows, almost invisible to most of the regular “owl spectators.” On some of the warmer days, the Art-area owl made brave appearances into the open, dancing along the northern rip-rap and foraging for rodents during the day. Those lucky enough to witness the owl in action went home with memories to cherish.
Shortly into this year’s docent season, we received some inspiring news. Last year, an injured owl had been found near Aquatic Park in Berkeley. It was taken to the Lindsay Wildlife Museum, where radiographs confirmed a simple, mid-diaphyseal fracture of the left humerus.  The fracture was pinned and wrapped. After a month of rehabilitation, the bird was banded and released at Chavez Park.
Recently Jay Holcomb at International Bird Rescue told us that this bird had been discovered alive and healthy in June by researcher Jamie Groves near Kuna, Idaho – more than 600 miles from Berkeley!
Jamie, who is studying parental/nesting behavior in Burrowing Owls for a master’s degree in Raptor Biology at Boise State University, wrote:

I banded this female, as well as her mate and their 7 nestlings (about 4 weeks old at banding). 

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.…