Blog Posts Archive - Page 18 of 137 - Golden Gate Bird Alliance

From the Trees to the Streets to Safety

By Ryan Nakano

On the corner of 12th and Harrison and along the perimeter of the Oakland Museum of California, nesting herons and egrets make a home among 10 large ficus trees. Unfortunately for many chicks, the streets below spell only danger.

Herons in Ficus Trees, Downtown Oakland by Allison Garvin

“The rookery in downtown Oakland is not a very healthy place for these birds to be nesting, as there is nowhere for their chicks to make the next steps into adulthood nearby,” Rebecca Duerr, the International Bird Rescue Director of Research and Veterinary Science, said. “Consequently, they (chicks) often fledge into the street and either starve or get hit by cars. Sometimes they land badly and fracture bones.”

Dead Heron fledgling by Allison Garvin

In January, the Oakland Zoo put out a call, offering four part-time positions responsible for rescuing these birds in downtown Oakland. Reinstating the Heron and Egret Rescue Program, the Oakland Zoo is now taking the lead in protecting fledgling Black-crowned Night Herons and Snowy Egrets from unsafe living conditions.

“We’re just now in the early phases of launching the program, but a large part of it will be going down there to check it out. Everyday the Oakland staff will scout in the morning and then go back in the afternoon,” Colleen Kinzley, Oakland Zoo Vice President of Animal Care Conservation and Research, said.”

Unfortunately, the problem of injured and unsafe heron and egret chicks in these areas is not new. Ever since they were spotted breeding downtown in 2010, they’ve faced the inherent dangers of nesting in an urban environment.

In 2015, in response to tree trimmers knocking down several active nests, Golden Gate Bird Alliance, the Oakland Zoo and the International Bird Rescue formed a partnership to rescue threatened herons and egrets in downtown Oakland.

In 2017, a group of developers removed and pruned back many of the trees that were once used by the birds as nesting sites. During this process they worked with wildlife ecologists to strategize around relocating the nests to Lake Merritt in hopes that the herons and egrets would follow. After an unsuccessful season of relocation, the city decided to end monitoring and relocation attempts.

With no permanent solutions, Black-crowned Night Herons and Egret fledglings continue to end up on the street, making the rescue program an essential animal welfare project.

Oakland Heron being washed by Isabel Luevano

After six years partnering with Golden Gate Bird Alliance, the Oakland Zoo hopes this dedicated three-year program will provide structure to the historically ad-hoc process for finding these vulnerable birds.…

On the Greater Sage-Grouse Lek

By Bryan Flaig

I stood on a small berm along the side of a deeply rutted jeep road and turned off my headlamp. The world went dark. Sunrise was still half an hour away and a waxing moon was absorbed by thick black clouds. It was cold. Quiet. Down the east slope of Shaffer Mountain, tiny headlights of semis hauling goods north and south on Highway 395 crisscrossed the long open valley. As my eyes adjusted, I could make out a swale of knee high sagebrush giving way to jagged rocks. It didn’t look like a sage-grouse lek, or what I had imagined in my head to be a sage-grouse lek. It was supposed to be a smooth, flat clearing of bare dirt. A dozen male Sage-Grouse were supposed to be displaying to females in a flat, open, dusty patch of high desert. That’s how I’d pictured it. Instead, I was looking at a dark, pumpkin patch of volcanic rock surrounded by scrubby vegetation. Everything tilted east, towards a dark valley, devoid of birds. But it was still early.

As the light moved towards a semblance of sunrise, the sky looked like a deep bruise. Steel blue poked out between black clouds. The air felt like rain, or even snow. I’d been provided this location by an experienced bird watcher, someone who had led outings to this spot many times for people eager to see Greater Sage-Grouse. “At 5 am, start driving out of Susanville”, he wrote. “You need to be on the lek before sunrise. After 25 miles, turn left onto the dirt road where the power lines cross Hwy 395. Stop at the cattle guard where another dirt road turns off to the left. Leave your car because the road can get muddy and rutted. Walk about a mile and turn left onto a steep jeep road that leads up the mountain. Walk another half mile and look for a pile of rocks. Turn off your headlamp, set up a spotting scope and wait for dawn. The birds will be directly in front of you”.

In California’s eastern Sierra, Sage-Grouse generally breed from late March to May, depending on the weather, and only display on the lek from first light until just after sunrise. Inconspicuous, male and female Sage-Grouse blend in well with their environment, with mottled brown and white feathers and a short, plump body. They spend most of their time huddled under pale green and brown sagebrush bushes, eating green shoots and insects during the wet season, and switching to toxic sagebrush leaves and buds when conditions dry out.…

Bess Petty: Bird Artist

By Ilana DeBare

Bess Petty was working for a company that made trade show banners when a friend asked if she had any small creations to include in a new gallery being set up by an artists’ collective.

Petty, a studio art graduate of U.C. Berkeley, had been sketching birds for fun. “I thought maybe I could make some [wallets] with birds on them, using scrap vinyl material from the place I worked,” she recalled.

That was in 2008. Since then, those initial scrap-material birds have grown into a menagerie of 83 different bird images that Petty sells on magnets, pins, notecards, coasters, stickers, pillows, and wallets.

One of those birds—a singing Western Meadowlark—is at the center of Golden Gate Bird Alliance’s Birdathon 2022 logo, which Petty designed pro bono.

Bird Versus Bird, Petty’s business, enjoys a five-star review on Etsy, where she currently does about half her sales. She also sells through gift shops at nature centers across the country. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, she sold her work in person at crafts fairs and other events, including some past GGBA Birdathon Awards Celebrations.

“My favorite type of order is from organizations and nature centers,” she said. “It’s supporting me but also supporting their conservation and education efforts.”

Shorebird magnets by Bird Vs Bird

Petty’s love of drawing started as a child, when it was one of her favorite pastimes. Her love of birds took root early too.

“I grew up in Davis, where my family would go on nature walks on campus or hiking in the Sierra,”said Perry, who is now 43 with her own seven-year-old son. “We always had a bird book around to see who came to our feeder.”

Petty “fell into” graphic design as a student when, working at a textbook store, she was asked to create their newspaper ads and window displays. After college, she got a job at Fastsigns, an Oakland company that makes marketing materials for trade shows—the source of those initial vinyl scraps that she made into wallets.

Her initial bird creations proved so popular and so fun to make that she decided to open an Etsy store. “Etsy was still very small and very craftsy back then,” she said. “You could have terrible photos and people would still buy stuff. I feel lucky to have gotten in on the ground floor.”

Petty bought a tabletop machine to make pins and magnets, a manual device that can turn out 100 pins an hour, and which she still uses today.…

Richmond CBC counters at Ferry Point - Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline on the morning of the count

Richmond Christmas Bird Count Takes Its Maiden Voyage

By Karyn Noel

It’s dark o’clock on the first sunday of 2022. I make coffee, pack my lunch, grab my bins and head toward my car to participate in the first-ever Richmond Christmas Bird Count. As a co-compiler, the joyful anticipation of this day has been building for months.

Ouch! It’s flippin’ freezing outside. No kidding – my birdbath is frozen solid, so I set my coffee cup on it and take a picture before de-icing my car. Luckily I’m on time to meet the group I’m supposed to lead in Hercules in the area around Sycamore Pond, Duck Pond, Frog Pond, and the Refugio Creek marshes surrounded by a young ~20 year old neighborhood adjacent to the San Pablo Bay.

Counters on the San Pablo Bay by Bruce Mast

The counters in my group are all amazed by how rich and productive the habitat is, (I say how “birdy”), in the middle of a planned community neighborhood. Hercules, of course, was named after one of the five dynamite factories that lined the shoreline at the turn of the last century.

Like the other 180 volunteer counters, we scoured all likely habitat and counted every bird we saw and/or heard. Counters included experts and novices. My favorite bird on my portion of the count was a pair of American White Pelicans spiraling up, up and over into another count area.

It was fun to hear the chatter across the group, such as whether or not it was okay to use recordings to flush a reluctant but known-to-the-area bird. The universe answered when the Green Heron we considered tricking, squawked and flushed without artificial prompt. Whew! Didn’t have to call the birding police in on that one!

With over 39 groups covering 19 different areas within the 15-mile diameter count circle, this was just a snippet of what it was like to be out that day.

Looking at the map, I’d say around 30% of the Richmond Christmas Bird Count footprint was on the Bay. In terms of sheer volume, of the 172 species reported and 48,677 individual birds seen, waterbirds made up more than 20% of the total with 6,386 scaups (greater, lesser & G/L) taking the top number followed by 3,733 Double-crested Cormorants. Special props to Bruce Mast for recruiting volunteer boat captain, Rich Holden. Thank you Bruce and Rich!

Pelagic Cormorants by Bruce Mast

As far as surprises go during the count; Sam Zuckerman spotted four Tundra Swans at Dotson Marsh on December 30, giving an auspicious start to the count week.…

Being a Bird Ambassador

By Margaret Hetherwick

Donna Hayes, Audubon member and resident birder of San Francisco’s Bernal Heights district, remembers seeing the glowing face of inspiration when a guest to her office noticed his first bird.

Hayes was a counselor at a city college at the time and was meeting with a student who had brought along their young son. There was a bird feeder outside her window — nothing special, said Hayes, just a regular backyard mix. As the two spoke, the meeting was beginning to drag for the youngest attendee.

“He was sitting there, deathly bored, and a male House Finch came to the birdfeeder,” said Hayes. “The little boy jumped up and exclaimed, ‘Look at that! What is that! It’s so beautiful!’ “I would have given my birdfeeder to him right then.”

House Finch at Coyote Hills by Rick Lewis

This is the crucial moment at which a bird enthusiast becomes a bird ambassador.

Hayes stopped the meeting to tell the boy about the finch as well as show him pictures of other local birds in the area. For the rest of the meeting, he pointed out every visitor to the feeder with fascination. As Hayes waved goodbye, she knew she had been part of a really special moment.

“Maybe after that one incident, I’ve wondered if that ignited something in him. I wish I could know. It was quite something.” said Hayes.

This interaction, while minute in size and innocuous in nature for an experienced birder like Donna Hayes, made all the difference to the child — he was struck by the natural world, and with Hayes’ guidance, forged a connection to his environment. By reinforcing his curiosity and sharing her own knowledge with enthusiasm, Hayes became, spontaneously in that moment, an ambassador for the world of birds.

This role is not exclusive to the world of birding; when one takes on a hobby, it is a given that their interest in that subject will be greater than that of a layperson. One can expect to find themselves fielding questions about their hobby when making small talk. Being a bird ambassador goes beyond sharing details about one’s interests; it is acting as a liaison between the technical and scientific world of bird observation and the inquisitive mind at hand.

Molly Hetherwick and intern at the Younger Lagoon Banding Station, talking about molt tracks on a Golden-crowned Sparrow

An intern and I (Molly Hetherwick) at the Younger Lagoon Banding Station, talking about molt tracks on a Golden-crowned Sparrow

Derek Heins, renowned birder in the East Bay and chapter board member of Golden Gate Bird Alliance since June, has observed an uptick in engagement by the general public.…