• Saved by a Pigeon

    By Patsy Wood

    While we may not realize it, an estimated 100,000 carrier pigeons served in the U.S. military in World War I and 95% of these pigeons were successful in completing their missions. Carrier pigeons were crucial messengers of information between humans during the war and due to the efforts of a single pigeon I am here today. 

    When my grandfather, Daddy Jack, left college in 1917 to enlist as a Navy pilot in World War I, he was commissioned as an Ensign, earning his aviator certificate before being sent to Florida for basic training. From there he was assigned to the Royal Naval Air Service in Norwich Great Britain where he flew fuel and supplies to the front lines in France, defended London against zeppelin raids and engaged in anti-submarine patrols against German U-boats.  

    The planes he flew were Sopwiths and Snyders. These single seater aircrafts with two pontoons and two machine guns carried 65 pound depth charges to use against submarines. Because this was the age before on-board radio, each plane enlisted a carrier pigeon trained to fly messages back to the base in Britain in case of emergencies. These pigeons were trained to alight on a seesaw at the naval base in Norwich where they were fed. The rocking of the seesaw rang a bell, alerting base personnel to the pigeon’s arrival so messages could be received quickly. 

    On one fateful mission, Daddy Jack’s plane was shot down over the North Sea. As his plane crashed into the water, my grandfather secured his carrier pigeon and swam to a nearby buoy where he released the bird, attaching a message with his coordinates to a small capsule on its leg. Just as it was trained to do, the pigeon flew back to the base enabling my grandfather to be rescued and brought home alive.  

    My grandfather was lucky that one of his duties as a naval aviator was to check the location of buoys on the routes he flew, but without his carrier pigeon, he likely would have perished. 

    Because of this single carrier pigeon, my mother and aunt, their eight children, 11 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren are alive today.  My family owes that pigeon a huge debt.

    Franco-British carrier pigeon getting ready to send a message

    So how is it that pigeons have the capability to be such effective message bearers? Studies have found that pigeons will find their way home even if blindfolded when they are released from distant places.…

  • Annie + Grinnell 4EVA

    By Megan Fradley-Smith

    The morning of March 31 dawned with sweet promise.: Annie, one half of the famous Cal Falcons, was due to lay her much-anticipated third egg. After a nesting season full of violence, injury, and love triangles, her adoring fans were ready to finally breathe easy. I was up early, coffee in hand, video of the Campanile tower streaming on my laptop. There was much more action that I anticipated: a juvenile female hopped into the nest during one of Annie’s absences, checking out the eggs while we, surrogate human parents, watched in rapt horror. Annie and Grinnell both were seen battling encroaching falcons, displaying the daring aerial combat for which Peregrines are known. Mercifully, by midday, Annie was back, serenely resting on her eggs. I decided it was safe for me to take a quick break from my monitoring, and ran a few errands. In that hour, the world of the Cal Falcons was forever changed.

    Grinnell watching his last brood fly by John Davis

    Tragedy struck. In a shocking turn of events, Grinnell, beloved patriarch of the Cal Falcons, was found dead in downtown Berkeley. I read this news with a slack jaw and aching heart, aghast. After so many ups and downs, after receiving expert care from Lindsay Wildlife in October, after the presumed death-then-return of Annie, Grinnell was gone, just like that. Comments poured in on the social media channels of the Cal Falcons, run by ornithologist couple Lynn Schofield and Sean Peterson. Collective grief was palpable, and we grappled with yet another blow, not only to our cherished Peregrine couple, but to all of us who followed them. I had personally set out to write a charming essay about these two love birds, culminating in a grand point about how their resilience could bolster our own, so faltering after these pandemic years. Instead, I am here to write the memorial of an incredible Peregrine Falcon called Grinnell, ambassador of his species and father to five successful broods.

    Grinnell was born sometime in 2013, around Martinez, California. He and his brother were banded by the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group as fledglings, and his black bands became his signature look, easily distinguishable from other falcons. He and Annie were first seen on the UC campus in late 2016, as they scoped out and ultimately chose the Campanile as their nest site. Their first attempt at parenthood was precarious, as they chose a decrepit sandbag as their nest scrape.…

  • Progress towards a Point Molate park

    By Ilana DeBare

    When a struggle to save a natural area from development has been going on for 25 years, every small step forward is more than welcome.

    Golden Gate Bird Alliance and its allies in the fight to save Point Molate were heartened on March 18 when the Richmond City Council rejected a proposed bond issue for development there.

    The council voted 4-0 (with three members absent) against a $292 million bond issue that would provide infrastructure for up to 2,000 luxury condos at Point Molate, one of the last undeveloped and unprotected areas along the San Francisco Bay shoreline.

    Point Molate Eelgrass by Allen Krakauer

    Golden Gate Bird Alliance is part of a coalition of Richmond community groups, Native American groups, and environmental justice groups fighting the Point Molate project. The 413-acre site, north of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, is home to 600 plant and animal species—including over 140 bird species and four active Osprey nests—as well as Ohlone sacred sites and the Bay’s most pristine eelgrass bed.

    Its stunning Bay views and wooded hillsides are a public treasure and should be preserved for public access as part of the East Bay Regional Park District, not privatized for luxury housing.

    “We welcome this thoughtful decision by the Richmond City Council,” said GGBA Executive Director Glenn Phillips. “There’s still a long road ahead to preservation of Point Molate. But the council has acted responsibly in challenging a project that would be a disaster for wildlife, for public access to nature, and for the City of Richmond.”

    Western Bluebird at Point Molate Beach by Allen Krakauer

    The roots of the Point Molate development battle date back to the nationwide military base closures of the 1990s, when a naval fuel depot there was turned over to the City of Richmond. (The San Francisco Presidio was also transferred to civilian use then and became part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.)

    In stark contrast with the Presidio’s transformation into public parkland, Richmond officials contracted with a developer to build a casino at Point Molate. When Richmond voters rejected the casino plan in 2010, the developer sued the city for $750 million in alleged lost profits. The city then contracted with another developer from Los Angeles to build luxury housing and promised to split proceeds from that sale with the disgruntled casino developer.

    The negative impacts of such a project go beyond the loss of wildlife habitat, open space, and recreation opportunities.…

  • 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.…