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

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.…

Adult male Summer Tanager in a blooming Eucalyptus at Jefferson Square Park by Mike Carozza

2021 SF Christmas Bird Count Report

By David Assmann

San Francisco birders have been lucky – for the past fifteen years, there has been no rain on the Christmas Bird Count, and conditions have been mostly sunny, with a rare bit of fog. The December 28, 2021 count, however, was cold and cloudy, with light rain at various points throughout the day.

The weather, while reducing visibility and bird activity, did not deter 136 enthusiastic volunteers from making this one of the better Christmas Bird Counts. Participants ended up tallying more than 64,000 birds by the time the count ended – down only slightly from last year’s total on a sunny day, and well above our 10 year average.

SF CBC counter Nancy Palmer at San Francisco Watershed by Noreen Weeden

We completed our transition to modernizing the count by reporting and compiling all data through eBird, including the documentation for rare birds. eBird’s new Trip Report feature made it much easier to consolidate information and share it with area leaders. 273 eBird checklists were submitted, an increase over last year.

By the time Count Week was over, the species tally was at least 187, and may reach 188 if the Mexican Duck, the rarest bird spotted on the count, is accepted. Illustrating the trickiness of bird identification, there is disagreement about whether or not this bird is a pure Mexican Duck, or if it also has Mallard genes. This determination will likely be made by the California Records Bird Committee, since this sighting is going to be submitted for review.

Mexican Duck by David Assmann

There were 28 rare species found, with nine of the eighteen areas finding a rare species. Six of the rare species were found during Count Week, but not on Count Day. New to the San Francisco Count were the Mexican Duck in Colma, and a White-winged Dove found during Count Week on Washington Street in a backyard. A Prairie Warbler found near Colma Creek in South San Francisco marked the first sighting of this species during the count since 1993.

Overall duck numbers were similar to prior years, but there was a lot of variation by species. There were only two Green-winged Teal spotted, down from 58 last year, and we missed Cinnamon Teal and Eurasian Wigeon altogether. Scaup numbers, however, were up from last year’s 611 to 1,069 this year (still well below historical numbers). We did set two count records for duck species, with eight Common Mergansers and 62 Red-breasted Mergansers.…