By Lisa Owens Viani

My owl obsession began when I moved to Berkeley in 2003. One evening while on an evening walk with a friend, she pointed out what she thought was the sound of someone breathing with the help of a respirator in a house on Edwards Street. That didn’t seem quite right — I instantly thought “bird” — but I wasn’t expecting to hear owls in such an urban spot.

I called a birder friend who suggested the possibility of a Barn Owl. Sure enough, upon closer inspection, we confirmed that the sound was coming from a Canary Island palm tree behind the house with the “respirator.” Then we spotted Barn Owls flying in and out of the tree, pearl white in the dark sky, backlit by the moon, making trip after trip to feed their young.

Barn Owl / Photo by Ashok Khosla – www.seeingbirds.com

But not everyone was as enamored with the owls — or their sounds — as I was, and the tree was cut down. I decided to found Keep Barn Owls in Berkeley, with the help of naturalist Joe Eaton and some other owl fans, to create more awareness about the incredible natural pest control services of these owls: One family can consume 600 mice in 10 weeks.

I connected with The Hungry Owl Project in Marin and local owl experts like Golden Gate Bird Alliance field trip leader Dave Quady, and began to get a grasp on the number of Barn Owls this city supports. I learned of about a dozen pairs nesting in Berkeley alone that year, most in Canary Island palm trees, many of which stand next to Victorians and thus were probably planted in the early 1900s. (I also learned about nests in El Cerrito, Albany, and Richmond, again most of them in Canary Island palms.)

In what may be the least controversial Berkeley city council resolution ever passed, we got the Barn Owl designated as the city’s official bird.

Berkeley’s Barn Owls have been here a long time. In a 1927 account in The Condor, UC Berkeley zoologist E. Raymond Hall wrote about the Barn Owls he discovered roosting in the tower of the First Presbyterian Church at Dana and Channing Way. Hall gained entrance to the tower and dissected the owls’ pellets. The most common prey remains were California meadow mice, pocket gophers, white-footed mice, and house mice.…

By Ilana DeBare

Last week saw one of the first big herring runs of the season in San Francisco Bay.

What’s a herring run? It’s a moment when the tides, weather and salinity are just right for herring to spawn in the bay – thousands upon thousands of them.

Which then draws thousands upon thousands of gulls and other birds.

Which then draws – well, maybe not thousands, but dozens of birders and fishermen.

Last week’s herring run took place over two to three days on the southern waterfront of San Francisco, near Mission Bay. Golden Gate Bird Alliance Volunteer Director Noreen Weeden was there and took these photos that give you a sense of the scale:

Gulls at herring run / Photo by Noreen Weeden Herring run / Photo by Noreen Weeden

The herring lay their roe on eelgrass and other plants in shallow Bay waters. Then as the tide recedes, gulls descend and feast on the roe. The eggs that survive become the next generation of herring.

Together with Eddie Bartley, Noreen counted some 1,500 gulls during her two hours there:  350 Mew Gulls, 300 Western Gulls, 250 California Gulls, 80 Herring Gulls, 7 Thayer’s Gulls, 120 Glaucous-winged Gulls, 5 hybrid Western x Glaucous-winged Gulls, and 2 hybrid Herring x Glaucous-winged Gulls.

It’s great to see this kind of a feeding frenzy, not just from a birding point of view but a conservation point of view.

California’s herring population crashed in the early 1990s, due to a combination of over-fishing and challenging weather conditions.

“There had been a Gold Rush in the mid-70s when the state Department of Fish and Wildlife and fishermen were really irresponsible and caught 30 percent of the herring biomass,” said Anna Weinstein, seabird program manager for Audubon California. “By the early 90s, the numbers were down to almost zero and DFW had to close the fishery for a year.”

Now, thanks to better management (including a catch limit of about 5 percent of biomass) and weather, the herring population has largely recovered — allowing big runs like the one last week.

But there are still challenges. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, there are hardly any older herring left. The schools are made up of young fish that are less robust and lay fewer eggs.

And the rules managing the fishery remain worrisomely weak. “It would be easy for DFW to raise the (catch) quota if prices rise and they come under pressure from fishermen,” Weinstein said.…

By Ilana DeBare

Q: What’s more exciting than a new Burrowing Owl roosting site in Berkeley?

 

A: When city officials, park district officials and Audubon activists pull off a super-speedy response to protect the owls!

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Golden Gate Bird Alliance’s volunteer docents were thrilled to find Burrowing Owls at a new site in early January — the rip-rap along the Bay Trail in Berkeley where it passes between city-run soccer fields and the shoreline.

Our docents were accustomed to Burrowing Owls along parts of the Berkeley waterfront. Since 2009, they’ve been helping protect and inform the public about the small owl colony that winters in Cesar Chavez Park at the Berkeley Marina.

But these owls were in a slightly different area. Burrowing Owls had historically roosted along the open Berkeley shoreline. Then construction of the Tom Bates Regional Sports Complex in 2008 displaced them. In an attempt at mitigation, government officials set aside some open space for owl habitat in McLaughlin Eastshore State Park at the Albany Plateau. But birds don’t pay attention to Environmental Impact Reports, and the owls never showed up at their designated new home.

Now, suddenly, here was an owl back at the old site – but surrounded by busy night-lit soccer fields, a heavily-trafficked parking lot, and a path filled with people and their unleashed dogs!

Dog walkers are common alongside the owl site / Photo by Ilana DeBare

When docent Mary Malec reported sighting an owl near the soccer fields, docent coordinator Della Dash sprang into action. She contacted the East Bay Regional Park District, which manages the land as part of McLaughlin Eastshore State Park, and the city of Berkeley, which leases it to operate the sports complex.

“I was pushing for a fence as fast as possible,” Dash said.

And officials responded. Berkeley Parks Superintendent Sue Ferrera ran over to the Berkeley waterfront to look for the owl on Jan. 2nd. She didn’t see it. She went back on Jan. 3rd and found it. The very next morning, Ferrera had a team of park maintenance people in the field, erecting an orange warning fence to keep people and pets away from the bird. Ferrera was there too, making sure that installation of the fence didn’t disturb the owl.

“It scooted over a bit, but Della had said that would be okay: It would scoot over and then probably come back,” said Ferrera.

…

Remember that old Rodney Dangerfield line:  “I don’t get no respect?” The same could be said about Turkey Vultures, one of our most common Bay Area birds. So when we saw this post by a TV fan on the 10000 Birds blog, we had to share it with you. Taking a new look at a familiar bird seemed like a good way to start 2013.

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By Larry Jordan

The Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura) is probably one of the most misunderstood birds in North America.

Some people think they are ugly, but not I.

 

Their odd looks serve very important purposes. The adult Turkey Vulture’s head and distal neck is reddish bare skin with blackish bristles, which not only helps keep their heads clean when partaking of a carrion meal, but they also use that featherless head to help regulate body temperature.

 

They can tuck their bare heads into their feather-collared necks to help keep warm, and when they are heat-stressed they will increase blood flow to the head, neck and legs, which dissipates heat by evaporative cooling.

Of course they also help regulate their body temperature using their famous spread-winged postures. This is the “extended spread-wing posture”

 

usually used to warm up in the morning sun or dry the wings, but sometimes it seems, just for fun.

Then there is the “delta wing posture” when Turkey Vultures face the sun and often preen.

 

Turkey Vultures are known for eating carrion but what some people don’t realize is that, unlike most birds, they have an excellent sense of smell. Because of their extra olfactory powers, many other carrion-eating birds like hawks, eagles and other vultures follow Turkey Vultures to kills.

 

This juvenile bird can be identified by its gray head and black-tipped beak.

 

Here you can see the juvenile and adult on the same perch, the juvie acting submissive.

 

A little bit later the juvenile gets comfortable, probably with a full crop.

 

At another carcass, weeks earlier, there were several vultures attending a roadside kill…

 

Can you imagine how many rotting animals we would have on the roadsides if we didn’t have vultures cleaning them up for us? I think Turkey Vultures deserve a lot more respect from us humans and especially birders.

How many times have you been birding when someone thought they spotted a hawk, eagle or other raptor and then acted disappointed when they discovered it was “only a Turkey Vulture.”…

By Scott Weidensaul 

Migratory birds—which must overcome so many natural challenges as they journey from one end of the globe to another—are having a much harder time overcoming the obstacles that humans have added to the mix: habitat loss, environmental contaminants, climate change, and a lot more.

But we humans can be helpful, too. I saw vivid proof of that last January in the highlands of northern Nicaragua, where declining migrants such as Wood Thrushes spend the nonbreeding season. For years, this area has been a stronghold for farmers growing quality shade coffee. Not coincidentally, it’s also known as a paradise for birds.

An island of fertile green

Everywhere we looked, we saw migrants: Philadelphia, Warbling, and Yellow-throated Vireos; Tennessee, Chestnut-sided, Wilson’s, and Yellow Warblers rolling through the understory in constant, flickering motion; Western Kingbirds and Western Wood-Pewees hawking insects in the treetops; Summer Tanagers and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks mixing with resident species like Black-headed Saltators and Clay-colored Robins. Flocks of Baltimore Orioles descended on blossoming trees and plucked the brilliant yellow flowers, dropping showers of blooms as they drank the rich pockets of nectar they’d revealed.

The highlands of northern Nicaragua, a productive shade coffee-growing region and refuge for migratory birds in winter. Photo by Scott Weidensaul. Rose-breasted Grosbeak / Photo by Bob Lewis

Later, in the village of San Juan del Río Coco, I met with members of a cooperative of more than 400 small coffee producers who raise more than 2.5 million pounds of shade coffee every year. These producers raise coffee the way it’s been farmed for centuries there, below the canopy of intact, functioning forests that provide critical habitat for scores of migratory bird species. When these shade coffee farmers prosper, the outlook for migratory birds gets brighter, too.

Seen from space, though, the hills around San Juan del Río Coco are an island of fertile green surrounded by hundreds of square kilometers of land already converted to sun coffee, pasture, and grain fields.

The fertile hills around Nicaragua’s San Juan del Río Coco are surrounded by denuded landscapes like this one—former forests converted to sun coffee, pasture, and grain fields. Photo by Scott Weidensaul.

Increasingly, small shade coffee farms have been destroyed to make way for sun-tolerant coffee—an industrialized, chemical-dependent system that renders what had been prime bird habitat into the ecological equivalent of a parking lot. By some estimates, more than 40 percent of the shade coffee farms in Latin America have already been lost to satiate the demand for cheap coffee.…