By Dan Murphy

A unique San Francisco treasure is the Bank Swallow colony at Fort Funston.  And just as unique is its current nesting site — a band of rip-rap placed there illegally (oops!) by the San Francisco Department of Public Works.

Let’s start with the basics. This year there are at least 110 nest burrows between the rock revetment (rip-rap) placed on the beach by the Department of Public Works and the crumbling roadbed above.  If you want cute and super hyperactivity, you’ve got to love Bank Swallows. These brown and white swallows with the distinctive black breast band are our smallest members of the swallow clan and among the longest-range migrants.

On my most recent visit in mid-June, there were at least a half-dozen swallow families of four to six birds swarming around the colony.  The young had probably fledged in the early morning and were bidding farewell to the colony before heading all the way to Ecuador or Columbia for the rest of the year.

Can you believe our tiniest swallow migrates all that way?  The first birds arrive on April 1 — yes, it’s predictable — and the last depart by August 1.  Mid-May to mid-June sees the height of activity at the colony.  It’s just non-stop activity.  There must have been insects on the beach because there were often a dozen or more adult birds pecking away there.  They use the beach to get bits of wrack for nesting material early in the season, but this is the first time in over 30 years of observations I’ve seen them apparently feeding on the sand.  The fun never ends with these guys.

Two juvenile Bank Swallows in their burrow at Fort Funston / Photo by Dan Murphy

Bank Swallows have been recorded at Lake Merced since at least the early 1900s.  There was also a colony near Skyline and Sloat that was destroyed when Skyline Blvd. was built.  We don’t have records of when they started nesting at Fort Funston, but it’s safe to say they’ve been there since the 1960s.  In better times they used the bluffs at Fort Funston between their north end and Panama Point, the point you can see to the south from the parking lot.

About four or five years ago, the compacted sand that forms the cliffs at Fort Funston started to slump into loose dune-like sand instead of the old sand cliffs that made for good swallow burrows. …

By Ilana DeBare

The cement stretched for acres around us, cracked and neglected, weeds springing up every few feet through the cracks. It reminded me of a scene from some post-apocalyptic science fiction movie, or from Alan Weisman’s fascinating book The World Without Us, in which he extrapolates what would happen to the planet if humans were to suddenly vanish.

NOT your stereotypical wildlife refuge / Photo by Ilana DeBare

But it wasn’t anything quite so dramatic. We were crossing an abandoned runway at the former Alameda Naval Air Station.

And we were riding in, of all things, an old-fashioned yellow school bus – on the annual Return of the Terns tour.

Each June, the East Bay Regional Park District joins with other groups including Golden Gate Bird Alliance to host bus tours of the breeding colony of endangered California Least Terns at the old Alameda naval air station.

The area is normally closed to the public to prevent disruption of the tern nests. But on Saturday, we were able to drive within yards of the tern colony, provided we didn’t get off the bus or make loud noises.

This may be one of the most unusual birding sites in the world. Forget images of birding in leafy groves or reedy marshes.  Least Terns traditionally nest on flat strips of sand or gravel — wide-open surfaces that seem frighteningly vulnerable but give them a good view of potential predators.

Decades ago, the terns apparently decided that the airstrip’s tarmac would be a good substitute for their vanishing beaches. They started returning and nesting here each spring despite the constant takeoffs and landings.

These were California Least Terns — the West Coast subspecies of the smallest kind of tern, which were placed on federal and state endangered species lists in 1970. So the fact that they were trying to breed here was a big deal.   Over the past 30 years, volunteers with Friends of the Alameda Wildlife Refuge — a committee of Golden Gate Bird Alliance — have worked with East Bay Regional Parks, the Navy and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to nurture and protect the colony. (GGBA is still pushing to get the nesting area declared an official wildlife refuge.)

Tern on nest (behind wire fence) near marker for monitoring nests. The terns return to the Bay Area each April to breed, then fly south in July or August.…

By Dan Murphy

A few years ago I noticed an unfamiliar species of acacia at North Lake in Golden Gate Park.  Acacia is one of those woody plants between a shrub and a tree.  It has little needle-like leaves and yellow flowers.  What actually caught my eye about it was that fall-migrating insectivores were using it.

That’s pretty odd for acacias, which are usually shunned by most local birds. About a year later, I observed that it was growing and spreading rapidly.  I asked the gardener about it and she referred me to her foreman.  He said it was part of the Recreation and Park Department’s plant palate for Golden Gate Park.  I thought that was pretty odd, but not a battle I wanted to start.

More recently, my wife Joan and I were birding at North Lake at the end of May when we spotted a lot of activity at the top of one of those acacias. I checked and spotted a Bushtit at its nest.  Suddenly there was a second Bushtit and then more! The baby birds were exploding from the dirty-sock-like nest.

Bushtit nest in an acacia / Photo by Dan Murphy

The adults returned several times to move more chicks into the world.  There was a buzz of activity around the nest until the last of the chicks made it out and the flock moved off.  In all, we counted nine birds, but surely there were more.  One weak flier landed in bushes where we didn’t see it emerge.  I wonder now if it made it.

So here’s a problem.  We have a relatively newly-introduced tree to which birds have almost immediately adapted.  It grows with little water and is evergreen.  Who could ask for more?

I guess I could.

The problem is that this tree is spreading faster than anything I’ve ever seen.  It crowds out other ornamentals.  It’s dense, so it shades out plants that might form an understory.  Remember, there is little native in Golden Gate Park, so I don’t really have a frame of reference for how this plant would act in a native habitat, but among the mostly exotic plants at the Chain-of-Lakes it is an example of a virulent and invasive plant that is just overwhelming everything.

North end of North Lake in Golden Gate Park, crowded with acacias / Photo by Dan Murphy

It’s one of those species that — even though it appears to benefit some birds — really should be removed before it expands to the rest of Golden Gate Park and beyond.…

By Phila Rogers

And just what is a bird sit?  I think of it as sitting quietly and listening intently to bird sounds.  Are you hearing a song declaring territory?  Or is it a call, or series of calls, which might be considered conversational?  Or is it an aggressive vocal display to defend territory?  Perhaps the call is an alarm announcing the approach of a predator. Light calls in the spring might be juvenile birds begging.

Other sounds may include rustling foliage. Can you distinguish the sound of wind in pines or in other trees?  And what about scratching sounds in dry leaves made by ground-feeding birds?  And then there are the ambient sounds – the collective roar from the cities below, traffic on a nearby roadway, a passing jet.

While listening for sounds, sitting quietly allows you to watch for the slightest movement revealing the presence of bird activity missed when walking along a pathway.

A bird sit allows you to soak up by osmosis the larger scene.  What does the air feel like — is it moist or dry?  Does it appear to be marine air coming from the ocean, or dry air coming from inland areas?  What are the fragrances?  Can you sense the mass of the nearby trees, the bulk of the surrounding hills?

If you are sitting near a stream, can you tell by listening if the stream is flowing over pebbles or around boulders?  Follow the stream with your mind’s eye from where it begins as springs high on the hill, following it through dark culverts, and where it finally joins the Bay.  Are there more birds calling and singing along the stream than elsewhere?

One of Phila Rogers' favorite places to do a "bird sit" is the U.C. Berkeley Botanical Garden. Photo of California native plants (including "Myrt's blush" Western azalea) courtesy of the U.C. Botanical Garden.

Stepping back into the past, can you imagine an earlier time before the roads and the introduced vegetation?  Go back a hundred years to grazing cattle and grassy hills when the song of the meadowlark prevailed.

Or go back 200 years earlier before the arrival of the Europeans, when grizzlies moved up the stream canyons.  Imagine the smell of burning grass and scrub from the fires set by the native peoples to clear the land and to promote the growth of tubers and wildflower seed.

Looking out over the Bay, imagine that 10,000 years ago the Bay was once a valley crossed by the great inland river, a time when the coastline was out beyond the Farallon Islands.…