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.

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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.…

By Ilana DeBare

What a glorious day for a count! It started out cool and windy, especially for the teams by the ocean, but by midday the sun was strong and hats came off.

And best of all… we set a new record for the San Francisco Christmas Bird Count.

Eighteen teams counted a preliminary total of 179 species — breaking the prior SF CBC record of 177 species and surpassing this year’s Oakland CBC total of 177. (Not that San Franciscans are competitive, of course — not in the slightest.)

“It was a remarkable day. I’m anxious to see the total numbers we ended up with,” said CBC co-compiler Dan Murphy, who together with co-compiler Alan Hopkins will now collect and tally final numbers.

North Beach CBC team on Telegraph Hill / Photo by Carlo Arreglo

Some preliminary findings from the count, as reported at the festive CBC dinner at the Log Cabin in the Presidio:

• The only remaining California Quail found in the 15-mile-wide San Francisco count circle were at the Pacifica archery range.
• Two Clapper Rails were found at Heron’s Head Park.

• The team covering eastern Golden Gate Park set a new record of 70 species in its territory and had a “seven warbler day.”

• The Sunset team counted 1,900 Red-throated Loons along the beach!
• The Lake Merced team counted 40 rarities from six species that are not usually found in San Francisco, including Tree Swallows, White-throated Swifts, Great-tailed Grackles and a Tropical Kingbird.
• The McLaren Park team – one of the teams with a particular challenge since their territory was landlocked, without water birds – found 55 species including four woodpecker species.
• The Presidio team encountered some 3,000 gulls at a massive herring run at the end of the day.
• The team with the highest count for the day was the Candlestick area team with a whopping 113 species, edging out the Presidio which had 104.

Lunch break for the eastern Golden Gate Park team / Photo by Ilana DeBare

Click here to see more photos of the count (both birds and birders) and the dinner afterwards on our Facebook page.

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