By Ilana DeBare

Some weekends there are just TOO many things to do! And that goes double during fall migration season.

This past Saturday was Coastal Cleanup Day, and Golden Gate Bird Alliance sponsored volunteer clean-up sessions at three different sites – Pier 94 in San Francisco, Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline Park in Oakland, and Rheem Creek (Bayview Elementary School) in San Pablo.

On top of that, Dan Murphy led his annual fall migration field trip in western San Francisco. The Bay Area’s Audubon chapters were holding a meeting at the Richardson Bay Audubon Center in Tiburon. And countless GGBA members were outdoors on their own looking for visiting warblers, vireos, crossbills and who knows what else….

Because pictures do speak louder than words, here are a lot of pictures and a few words about the weekend’s adventures:

Adults and kids haul trash out of Rheem Creek in San Pablo / Photo by Karen Stout Young volunteers sort trash they pulled out of Rheem Creek in San Pablo / Photo by Anthony DeCicco

At Rheem Creek in San Pablo, GGBA Eco-Education staff and volunteers joined kids from Bayview Elementary School to clean up Rheem Creek, a tributary to the Bay. Thirty-two people picked up about 450 pounds of trash, including a shopping cart, fax machine, word processor, two bicycles and a sports trophy.

Meanwhile, at Pier 94 near Bayview/Hunter’s Point, twelve GGBA volunteers used recycled bags to remove 1,120 pounds of trash, including  one cubic yard of salsola soda, an invasive weed. Amidst the paint cans, PVC, styrofoam and razorwire, the most unusual piece of trash was a… plastic Santa.

At MLK Shoreline, eight GGBA volunteers picked up about 30 pounds of trash. (No shopping carts there… so they were focusing on small pieces.)

Across the Bay in San Francisco, Dan Murphy led about 30 birders on a field trip at the Chain of Lakes in Golden Gate Park, the East Wash and other coastal sites. “North Lake in GGP produced the day’s best birds,” he reported. “Hooded Merganser, Gadwall, Hermit Warbler 2, Orchard Oriole, Willow Flycatcher, Common Yellowthroat, Nuttall’s Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Cedar Waxwing 2.”

Dan Murphy & crew looking for shearwaters at East Wash / Photo by Ilana DeBare How many Audubon chapters get to bird with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background? / Photo by Ilana DeBare

And, lest you think we only have photos of people from the weekend, we’ll end with a couple of photos of goldfinches having as good a time as any of their human observers.…

By Ilana DeBare

John Muir “Jack” Laws, a Golden Gate Bird Alliance board member and author of several field guides, has a beautiful new book out this month, The Laws Guide to Drawing Birds. We sat down recently to speak with Jack about drawing birds — and why it is an activity not simply for “gifted artists” but for anyone who wants to heighten their appreciation of birds and nature.

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Q: This has nothing to do with the book, but where did you get your name? As a naturalist, did you decide to take the name of John Muir? 

A:  That’s really what my mom and dad named me. The middle name Muir came from my great-grandmother on my dad’s side. And John, with the nickname Jack, came from my grandfather on my mom’s side.  But they were very aware of the way those two things came together. My mom was a Sierra Club lawyer and the two of them had spent a lot of time romancing in the Sierra Nevada.

The whole time I was growing up, I thought I must be related to John Muir. I grew up reading his stories (of) climbing trees in windstorms and sliding down glaciers and all these other adventures. I definitely felt a connection.

Q: Most people feel, “I can’t draw.” Not just “I can’t draw birds,” but “I can’t draw anything.” Is that true? 

A: It is an incredibly powerful, pervasive myth. But it’s entirely false. The truth of the matter is that drawing is a skill, like learning how to make a bed. The more you do it, the better you get at it.

As adults, we don’t want to let ourselves do anything we’re not already good at. So we don’t give it a try. We don’t want to let ourselves stand briefly in that vulnerable place where we’re not already an expert. And so we miss out on a lot of really great opportunities.

Canada Warbler - sketch by Jack Laws

Q: But there are also differences in the level of potential. Wouldn’t you see a difference if you put Van Gogh and me in front of sketchpads?

 A: You listen to Mozart’s early stuff, and it’s not good. Then you look at what he does down the line, and wow! He’s put in his time.

If you start drawing on a regular basis for one year, at the end of that year, your friends will be turning to you and saying, “Oh my gosh, you’re so lucky to have that gift.…

By Phila Rogers

Every year when I flip over the calendar from August to September, I pin up on the wall above my desk the list of dates when I first sighted the arriving Golden–crowned Sparrows.

No other species says “fall” in the same way. When I hear those sweet plaintive notes, I know all is right with the world.

This morning as I look up into the early September sky and see a scattering of clouds that might bring us the first shower of the season, I wonder if I should begin my daily vigil now.  Though the earliest arrival date over the last forty years is September 16, I’m eager to begin.

In the dark hours of early morning, I imagine these flocks of small wayfarers making their way south from where they nested in the far north. Where are they this night? Where along the coast will they stop to refresh themselves before taking up the journey again at sunset?

Around sunrise, I will walk slowly up the street listening, listening. The first sign is apt to be a general liveliness among the local birds with lots of vocalizing, as if these winter visitors from the tundra are reason enough for excitement.

Golden-crowned Sparrow / Photo by Bob Lewis, http://www.flickr.com/photos/boblewis/

Some years, I will discover several sparrows silently feeding in the Catalina cherry where the street opens out onto the steep hillsides of the University lands.  Other years, I will walk further out on the dirt path where I have a view down to the bays and oaks in the narrow canyon where the north fork of Strawberry Creek begins.

Sometimes, I will be stopped by a small single note of uncertain origin. Then an answer.  Maybe two notes this time in a minor key, which makes me shout “yes!”  Once I was so excited that I performed an ecstatic jig, hopefully unobserved.

Another year, I came back to my house empty-handed, only to find a young male Golden-crown feeding, unconcerned, at the seed tray.

Last year was truly worrisome.  After almost a month of the daily vigil, I finally heard my first Golden-crown.  The date was October 11!  I recall a few years back, when the Golden-crowns were late, the San Francisco Chronicle began publishing “Letters to the Editor” from other bird watchers asking:  “Where are they?”

What is it about these small brown birds that engages our imagination? …

By Frances Dupont

A Golden Gate Bird Alliance docent hikes a half mile to the northeast corner of Cesar Chavez Park, carrying binoculars, camera, brochures, data sheets and a spotting scope.  She sets up the scope next to the trail and aims it at a small speckled lump that blends in with the dry grass beside a ground-squirrel hole.  Then she greets a passerby and asks if he would like to see an owl. He peers through the scope and sees a pair of bright yellow eyes looking back at him, and says something like, “Oh my gosh.”  Taking his eye away from the scope, he looks out across the grass and asks, “Where is it?”

The Chavez Park Burrowing Owls are a delightful lesson in camouflage. This helps to explain how they manage to survive along a busy park trail.  The GGBA docents call attention to those owls that are within the area cordoned off by a protective art installation, so that the public may understand why the area is protected.  These yellow-eyed ambassadors help spread the word that even a busy public park is shared with a wide variety of birds and other creatures.

Viewing the owls at Cesar Chavez Park / Photo by Doug Donaldson

Each year several Burrowing Owls spend the winter at Cesar Chavez Park, at the end of University Avenue, next to the City of Berkeley Marina.  This former dump site was covered and then turned into a park in 1991.  Twenty-one years later, it is heavily used by walkers, dog-walkers, joggers, cyclists and, surprisingly, wildlife.  Up to ten burrowing owls reportedly wintered in the park once, and five owls were seen in the winter of 2011-2012.

Burrowing Owls are one of the few birds that live in a hole in the ground, and they are the only ground-dwelling owl. They are capable of digging their own burrows in soft soil, but generally use holes dug by ground squirrels.  They were once a common grassland bird, but their habitat has been greatly diminished by agriculture and housing.  Currently they breed in the Central Valley, but the owls that winter in Chavez Park may have raised their young as far away as Idaho.  Here in Berkeley, the ground squirrels and owls have been able to create comfortable living quarters along the stone rip-rap that separates the landfill from the bay.  Many park regulars make a habit of looking for the owls when they walk the perimeter trail between October and March.…