By Bob Lewis

Eleven friends of Golden Gate Bird Alliance did a Birdathon trip near Monterey on April 15 aboard the Elkhorn Slough Safari boat, finding about 43 species in two hours, and photographing many.  Although the weather report promised high winds and cold temperatures, the elements held off and the morning was pleasant.  Captain Yohn is expert at maneuvering close to animals without spooking them, and we got great looks at quite a few.

It was a grand time to see birds in their alternate (breeding) plumage, and we found all three cormorants – Brandt’s on nests with their bright blue gular pouches, Pelagic with bright red faces, and Double-crested sporting bright yellow pouches.

Brandt's Cormorants nesting / Photo by Bob Lewis Pelagic Cormorant / Photo by Bob Lewis Double-crested Cormorant / Photo by Bob Lewis

American White Pelicans flew by showing off their “nuptial knobs,” strange protuberances on their bill that are only present during breeding time.

White Pelicans with breeding "bump" on bill / Photo by Bob Lewis

The most interesting bird was a Red-throated Loon in alternate plumage.  It’s a plumage seldom seen south of the arctic nesting grounds, so exciting to find.  Some of the Common Loons were also in striking black and white breeding plumage, Eared Grebes showed off golden ear tufts, Black-bellied Plovers had black bellies, Greater Yellowlegs were strikingly speckled, and a Pigeon Guillemot showed off his bright red feet.

Red-throated Loon / Photo by Bob Lewis

Best mammal award was a tie between the always adorable Sea Otters and the Harbor Seals with their newborn pups.  Sea Lions will probably dispute the judging – they had a lot to say as we cruised by their overcrowded dock.

Newborn harbor seal and mother / Photo by Bob Lewis

Many thanks to all the participants and others who contributed to our Birdathon efforts.

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Even if you didn’t go on a Birdathon field trip, please join us at the Birdathon Awards Dinner on Sunday afternoon May 19th! There will be good food, good friends, boutique wines, and birding opportunities at a beautiful private hillside home next to Redwood Regional Park. Info and registration at https://goldengatebirdalliance.org/donate/birdathon-2013/birdathon-2013-dinner/.

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By Ilana DeBare

There has been so much deeply horrific news this week — the Boston bombings, the spineless Senate, the Texas fertilizer fire. It might seem hard to care about two dead goslings.

But these goslings were in our backyard, so to speak, swimming in the bay a few feet offshore of San Francisco’s Crissy Field on Wednesday.

And they died a completely gratuitous death in the jaws of several unleashed dogs — a graphic illustration of why we need stricter regulation of dogs in the Presidio and other parts of Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

San Francisco resident Mikiye Nakanishi was walking her own chihuahua and saw the killings unfold. Two adult Canada Geese were leading six goslings into the bay from the inlet near the Crissy Field lagoon. The adults were swimming easily out, and the youngsters were working hard to get past the bay’s tiny waves.

Canada Goose family before dog attack / Photo by Mikiye Nakanishi Goslings before dog attack / Photo by Mikiye Nakanishi

A crowd of teenage French tourists were gathered nearby, watching the cute bird family. Other passersby stopped to see what was drawing everyone’s attention. Nakanishi herself stopped to snap some photos. Suddenly an off-leash dog came running at the birds. Its owner called it off.

“Then another dog came running and grabbed one,” Nakanishi recounted. “A second dog grabbed another one. A third dog came and pushed them all out. The geese had no place to go. People were surrounding them. The dog owners were saying, ‘Oh, they’ re not going to hurt them.’ ”

No, the dogs did not hurt the goslings.

They killed them.

Gosling killed by dogs / Photo by Mikiye Nakanishi

Nakanishi was horrified, both by the sudden killings and by the irresponsibility of the dogs’ owners, who fled the scene before park personnel could arrive.

The pointless death of the two young geese highlights something we have been saying for a long time — there need to be stricter controls on unleashed dogs in the GGNRA.

Most U.S. national parks allow NO unleashed dogs at all, and allow leashed dogs only on paved surfaces like parking lots. Yet dogs roam free throughout almost all of the GGNRA, despite the fact that it is home to more endangered species than Yosemite, Sequoia, Death Valley and Kings Canyon National Parks combined.

We understand that dog owners cherish the ability to let their pets run free.…

By Ilana DeBare

Dozens of Cliff Swallows are being killed each week by a Caltrans contractor in Petaluma — even though alternative technologies are available that would keep the swallows safe.

Sonoma County bird lovers are up in arms over the killings, in which swallows are being trapped in netting installed on a Highway 101 bridge by contractor C.C. Myers.

They’re asking other wildlife lovers to sign petitions and write letters asking Caltrans to remove the netting.

“This is the wrong material for the wrong structure in the wrong environment for the wrong purpose,” said Veronica Bowers of Native Songbird Care and Conservation, a Sonoma County wildlife rehabilitation group that is leading the fight against the netting.

The issue involves construction work to widen Highway 101, including a bridge where the highway crosses the Petaluma River. Cliff Swallows have nested under that bridge for decades, returning to the area each spring from their wintering grounds 6000 miles away in South America.

Petaluma River bridge / Photo courtesy of Native Songbird Care & Conservation Swallows in netting / Photo by Scott Manchester, Santa Rosa Press Democrat

Federal law makes it illegal to interfere with nests of migratory birds. So to prevent the swallows from building nests on the bridge, Caltrans contractor C.C. Myers installed netting. But the netting is hardly bird-proof. The swallows — which have very strong fidelity to their previous nesting sites — fly into the netting and get trapped.

The irony is that — in supposed compliance with a law aimed at protecting birds’ nests — Caltrans is now killing birds.

In six visits between April 7 and 13, Native Songbird Care volunteers documented 87 dead Cliff Swallows, one dead Barn Swallow, and one dead European Starling. They estimate that the total death toll so far is in the hundreds.

Swallows in netting / Photo by Sheri Cardo

In response to complaints about the deaths, the contractor now has workers removing bird carcasses and repairing holes in the netting each night. But new birds continue to get trapped every day, dying slow deaths from suffocation or dehydration.

Meanwhile, there’s an alternate technology that would prevent nesting during construction while also saving birds’ lives. Teflon (HDPE) sheeting can be wrapped on the bridge to deny the birds a foothold without entrapping them.

But Caltrans and C.C. Myers have so far refused to back off the deadly netting strategy. And U.S.…

By Ilana DeBare

If this blog has been a little quiet for the past couple of weeks, it’s because we’ve been spending a lot of time on the (annoying, frustrating, necessary) administrative details of our annual Birdathon, which runs throughout the month of April.

But here’s the payoff for all that administrative scutwork — time in the field for Birdathon participants!

Jerry Ting and Davor Desancic recently completed a 13-hour self-guided Birdathon photo expedition. They started at 6:40 a.m. and ended at 7:40 p.m., hit eleven East Bay birding hotspots, and along the way found 135 species.

That’s great, but in fact a number of our Birdathon trips spot over 100 species. What’s amazing is that Jerry and Davor also managed to photograph 120 of them!

Here are a few of  Jerry’s photos. You can see the rest of them in Jerry’s Flickr Birdathon gallery and on Davor’s Birdathon Flickr gallery.

Yellow-rumped (Audubon's) Warbler at Fremont Central Park / Photo by Jerry Ting Common Gallinule at Coyote Hills in Fremont / Photo by Jerry Ting Tree Swallow at Fremont Central Park / Photo by Jerry Ting Cedar Waxwings at Martin Luther King Shoreline Park, Oakland / Photo by Jerry Ting

Jerry’s Birdathon photos remind me of how fortunate we are to live in this incredible area, where we can see such a wealth and diversity of birds in a single day.

Of course, the other benefit of Birdathon — besides the birding fun — is the fundraising for Golden Gate Bird Alliance.

So far, individual Birdathon participants have raised or donated over $11,000! We’ve raised another $10,000 in corporate sponsorships. And we’re just halfway through the month — donations continue to roll in.

As many of our members know, this has been a challenging year financially for GGBA. So the support of our members and friends through Birdathon is more welcome and more appreciated than ever.

Want to join the fun? There are two more weekends of trips, most of which still have spaces available. Click here for the calendar of Birdathon trips.

Or do what Jerry and Davor did — create your own self-guided Birdathon expedition, and commemorate it with a donation or fundraising for GGBA.

Even if you can’t join one of the trips, please join us for the Birdathon Awards Dinner on Sunday afternoon May 19th in Oakland. Details and online registration for the dinner are available on our web site by clicking here.…

By Ilana DeBare

Fifteen wiggly fourth graders crowded into a narrow asphalt strip between their North Richmond schoolyard and the fence bordering Rheem Creek. “You are standing in what may be your future rain garden!” declared landscape architect Bob Birkeland, a volunteer with Golden Gate Bird Alliance’s Eco-Education program.

That didn’t seem to mean much to the kids, who were happy just to be outside on a beautiful spring morning. But then Bob had them look down at the barred storm drain under their feet.

“If I spill soda in here, where’s it going to go?” he asked.

“The creek! The bay! The hummingbirds! The fish!” the kids chorused, remembering their Eco-Ed field trip to the Point Pinole shoreline.

“Right, and do fish like soda?”

“Nooo!”

Someday... native grasses!

Bob and his colleague Rich Walkling from Restoration Design Group joined GGBA Eco-Education Director Anthony DeCicco last month to give a hands-on lesson on watersheds, pollution and the future rain garden planned for Bay View Elementary School in Richmond.

A rain garden or bioswale is a planted depression that allows rainwater runoff from paved areas to be absorbed into the soil.

Through its Eco-Education program, Golden Gate Bird Alliance is partnering with Bay View Elementary to design and build a rain garden in an unused section of the asphalt schoolyard. The garden will play a double role — serving as an outdoor environmental study area, and eliminating some of the pollution that flows into the creek and then on into Breuner Marsh, an Important Bird Area along the bay. 

Anthony DeCicco shows Bay View students the plan for the rain garden / Photo by Ilana DeBare

Last month’s rain garden lesson came midway through the year’s Eco-Education curriculum. “Mister Anthony” had already met with the children several other times, including the Pt. Pinole field trip.

Now he began by by displaying a map of North Richmond, from the hills to the bay. “What’s the name of the creek next to your school?” he asked the classroom of about 30 kids, the first of three classes he’d meet with that day. “Creeks and rivers — do they start in the bay or finish in the bay? I guarantee you will know by the end of the day.”

Switching back and forth smoothly between English and Spanish, Anthony showed slides of local wildlife like birds and dragonflies that rely on Rheem Creek.…