Least Tern (bird) with yellow beak, black head and grey wings feeds a baby Least Tern chick a small silver fish

How to See Nesting California Least Terns and their Chicks

By Marjorie Powell

California Least Terns (Sternula antillarum browni) can be seen plunge-diving for fish at several East Bay locations in the summer but seeing them nesting is more difficult. Traditionally, Least Terns make scrapes in the sand to lay their two or three eggs, but with beaches full of people and dogs, the terns have found other nest sites. At the Alameda Wildlife Reserve and Hayward Regional Shoreline, large fenced areas protect nesting terns in the Bay Area from mammal predators (feral cats, racoons, etc.) and human disturbance. Devoted birders can serve as monitors for the nesting colonies, alerting US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) when an aerial predator appears (Peregrine Falcons are especially skilled at taking eggs, chicks and sometimes adults), but training for new monitors at the Alameda Reserve has not happened since the start of COVID, and monitoring provides no option for other birders or potential birders.

yellow school bus with people lined up in front waiting to enterPeople board a bus for the trip to the Least Tern colony at Alameda Wildlife Reserve on June 25, 2022 by Rick Lewis

About the only other option to see eggs and chicks is Return of the Terns. A cooperative endeavor between USFWS, which manages the colony at the Alameda Wildlife Reserve for the Department of Veterans Affair, which now holds title to the land, and Crab Cove, part of the East Bay Regional Park District, Return of the Terns is a yearly event where members of the public can learn about the endangered species. Pre-registered participants spend around 30 minutes on a school bus inside the reserve’s outer fence looking over the breeding site fence to watch chicks running and adults holding small fish while searching for their chick. An unadvertised bonus is the view of San Francisco from the northwestern corner of Alameda.

Foggy view of San Francisco cityscape, with sand from the beach in the foreground San Francisco is impressive even in the haze when seen from the northwest corner of the Reserve in Alameda by Rick Lewis

This year’s presentation was outdoors, with pictures projected onto a canopied screen. Susan Euing, the USFWS Wildlife Biologist who manages the colony, gave the first presentation about Least Terns’ life cycles and nesting practices and then lead three bus tours of twenty-five people to the colony. A Crab Cove naturalist gave the latter two presentations while tours were happening. One important take-away from the presentations is that nesting success depends on the presence of small fish and the absence, or at least lesser presence, of a Peregrine Falcon (they also nest in Alameda).…

On Naming Individual Birds

On Naming Individual Birds

By Ryan Nakano

When I bought my first car I named it Lorelai, after Lorelai Gilmore from the show Girlmore Girls. Growing up with beagles, my family had Elsa, and then Buddy. My cat has many names, the primary of which is Eevee, after the Pokemon, although this is disputed by my girlfriend who named our cat after her aunt and did in fact sign the paperwork. The Black Phoebe I see almost every morning at the rose garden is simply Phoebe.

The point is, naming is both fascinating and complicated.

Last week Golden Gate Bird Alliance finished up a naming process for two new Osprey chicks. After receiving 570 responses to a choice of five pairs of potential names, it was decided that the chicks would be known as Brooks and Molate. Prior to this vote, we opened up for name suggestions and received 125 submissions. After participating in the process for submission review, I couldn’t help but think about the act of naming individual wild animals and the thought process behind what names we believe to be appropriate or representative of them.

In an article titled What’s in a Name?—Consequences of Naming Non-Human Animals author Sune Borkfelt addresses the necessity of naming as a communication tool.

“Indeed, it is naming something that enables us to communicate about it in specific terms, whether the object named is human or non-human, animate or inanimate.”

Now, instead of sharing that chick A and chick B are starting to become easier to tell apart, I can say that Molate has a broader dark stripe on the back of their head, while Brooks’ head is lighter in color. But why Brooks and Molate?

Named after two important bird areas local to the Bay Area, Brooks Island and Point Molate, it would appear that these birds now represent a reminder to continue preservation and restoration efforts of our shared natural environment.

Borkfelt goes on to note, “A name is a representation and can therefore potentially carry all the values, ideas, perceptions and conceptions carried by representations and have the array of potential consequences, which can ensue from representation.”

Under this premise, these two new chicks now intentionally or unintentionally become the mascots for local bird habitat and the ongoing efforts to preserve such spaces. (Which, all things considered, doesn’t seem like a bad thing!)

Of course, Brooks Island itself was onced named after something, limited research concludes that it is an eponym to an unknown person from the past.…

How Many Birds Can Be Found in the Bay Area in One Day?

How Many Birds Can Be Found in the Bay Area in One Day?

Originally published on June 15 in Bay Nature

By Lia Keener and Mukta Patil

Birders sometimes have competitions to see who can find the most bird species in a set amount of time. If you want to participate in one of these, a few things to know first: It is frenetic. It is competitive. Forget the leisurely walks through the woods; if you’re serious there isn’t even time for a lunch break.

It is, however, a great time to watch birders watching birds, and to try to understand the appeal of a pursuit that delights and entrances people around the world. So when two teams decided on a 13-hour competition this spring to see which side of the Bay could find the most birds, the debut Golden Gate Bird Alliance Bay Birding Challenge, the two of us tagged along.

The leaders of the two teams, Alex Henry, Rachel Lawrence and Eric Schroeder of GGBA established ground rules in advance: teams could travel anywhere within their two assigned counties (San Francisco and San Mateo for the San Francisco team, and Contra Costa and Alameda for the East Bay team). Birds could be identified by sight or sound, but at least two people from the team had to see or hear them. The birding would begin at 6:14 a.m. exactly, 29 minutes before the sunrise, and end 13 hours later at 7:14 p.m.

1. Beginnings

Six fourteen a.m. rolls around without much fanfare in the mist at Lake Merced. It’s still dark at first light but bird identifications by sound fill the air around me: “ruddy duck,” “mallard,” “white-crowned sparrow.” As the sky lightens, gnats buzz below, and a double-breasted cormorant carrying nesting material flies above. San Francisco faces long odds in the competition – spring is a great time for birding in the East Bay – and the team starts here with the urgency of the underdog. “I don’t expect to win,” says San Francisco team leader Lawrence, “but I just don’t want to be embarrassed.”

After a 4 a.m. wakeup and a 40 minute drive from Berkeley, the East Bay team gathers in the darkness beneath Mount Diablo. It’s cold in Mitchell Canyon compared to Berkeley as the birders, decked out in hats, binoculars, walking sticks, spotting scopes, and hiking boots, materialize out of the darkness of the parking lot. The official start time marks an immediate end to our pre-dawn chatter.…

The Birds and The Beavers

The Birds and The Beavers

By Elizabeth Winstead

I may not be the best birder since I’m not much of a morning person, but recently I woke up at an ungodly hour to drive to Fairfield for the dawn. I thought, “Who is this person who really doesn’t like to be cold, but is so captivated that she forgets she is shivering, and her hands are numb on a wind tunnel of a bridge despite a hat, gloves, and multiple layers, because she is waiting for, of all things, a baby rodent to appear?”

Beaver Dam by Elizabeth Winstead

The dawn slowly lit up the small creek below as I searched the water because I heard there was a beaver kit, and I’m a pushover for baby animals. Suddenly, a Green Heron erupted out of the marshy edges and flew across the creek and over a nearby house. Green Herons have declined by 68% (from 1966 to 2014) and can be elusive to find as they hide in vegetation. Who would’ve thought that you could find a family of beavers in the middle of a city on a human-channeled creek surrounded by houses on both sides, and that the beavers would be able to create enough habitat to attract waterbirds like Green Herons? Happily, I got to watch both an adult beaver and a kit swim in the creek. The kit seemed annoyed by a nearby mama Mallard and her five ducklings and slapped the water with a cute tiny whack.

Beaver Lodge and Great Egret

A love of nature led to a love of birding, which led me to notice a reference to the California Beaver Summit in a Golden Gate Bird Alliance email last year. Worrying about climate change, I was intrigued by their hook—what if one of the solutions to problems like drought and wildfires was simple, affordable, and nature-based? What if it involved an unlikely, plump rodent with buck teeth and a flat tail?

Beaver at dam

The two-day summit of virtual presentations on this keystone species included Dr. Emily Fairfax, who researches how beavers can engineer drought and fire-resistant landscapes, and Dr. Michael Pollack who studies how beavers create slow water habitat that is critical for salmon growth and survival. I was on my way to becoming a beaver believer.

eBIRDing a Local Beaver Creek

Female Red-winged Blackbird

Before the California Beaver Summit, I had never seen a wild beaver, so I got excited when they told me there were some in Fairfield and on the Napa River.…

Come for the Birds, Stay for the Chocolate

Come for the Birds, Stay for the Chocolate

By Ryan Nakano

Lately, I’ve been wondering what I enjoy most about birding. As a novice, it’s hard to say that it has anything to do with generating a long list, chasing after a rare bird, or even really identifying different bird species by sight or sound. I think what I’m starting to realize is, I, myself am changing, am slowing down, allowing my senses to be open to the world in a way they weren’t before I started, and this ability to concentrate and focus my attention on one particular thing and be satisfied has brought me immense joy. 

Before I joined Golden Gate Bird Alliance, I knew very little about birds, and if we’re being honest, I still have so much to learn. What I did know however, was that during my day-to-day I was slipping into a terrifying habit of curating my senses to a digital world. For example; anytime I would go out for a run, I would immediately cue up a playlist from Spotify and throw my bluetooth earbuds in before leaving my apartment. I never heard the dogs barking, cars passing, House Finches chirping from above, Mourning Doves singing in their low hum. When dishes piled up in the sink, my attention sought an endless Youtube algorithm as my hands tried to busy themselves with plates and soap. 

At some point in time I had bought into the “attention economy” as it is referred to in the book How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell, leaving me with a feeling of unresolved longing. I felt that somehow by maximizing stimuli I was maximizing my time, therefore living the fullest and most efficient life possible. In reality, I was disappearing “life” altogether.

So what does this personal epiphany have to do with birds and chocolate, the focus of this article as the title suggests?

Photo of chocolate tasting provided by Cacao Case

Striking up a conversation with one of our newest board members Sharol Nelson-Embry about her unique contribution to the 2022 Birdathon Auction (yes, this is indeed a long sales pitch), I was reminded of the personal change that happens when we slow down and learn to sharpen our senses to the unabridged version of the world. 

Happening sometime in the fall/winter, a small group, led by Sharol will spend an hour or so observing shorebirds and terns along Elsie Roemer Bird Sanctuary in Alameda before heading over to a beautiful Victorian home to enjoy a bird-friendly chocolate tasting. …