• ‘Tis the Season To Count Birds – Vol 2.

    Patrick Meeker

    It was 6:15 in the morning and I was ready to roll.

    Once I scarfed down my paltry breakfast, a bowl of Rice Chex, my ride was there, ready to drive us down to the shores of Alameda via the Oakland Yacht Club. Sitting there at the end of the dock, there she was: “Sparky,” a modest fishing vessel that was participating in its 4th consecutive Christmas Bird Count (CBC).

    “Sparky” / Bruce Mast

    The fog was coming in thick across the San Francisco Bay as our boat launched from the dock. It was cold—the kind of cold that bites at your cheeks and makes you acutely aware of every breath. Yet as I settled into my role for the day, binoculars snug around my neck, life jacket firmly attached, my iPhone charged up and eBird open at the ready, I felt something more than the chill of the day.

    I felt connection.

    This being my 10th consecutive CBC, the day represented far more than tallying species for me. It was a commitment I’d made to myself months ago—a promise rooted in my deepest values: building meaningful relationships and staying connected to nature. As the boat cut through the water, I was beginning to see how this single day embodied everything I am preaching: intentionality, presence, and the courage to show up for what matters.

    Being Intentional and Showing Up

    It was my intention to be more involved with the Golden Gate Bird Alliance this year. Not only would I be participating in the Oakland CBC again, but I wanted to get up close and personal with the data behind the count and become a compiler, which meant I would be part of a team putting together the final tally of bird count data for the entire day from all groups participating. This required blocking much of my calendar, coordinating with other dedicated people who also did this in their free time, and ultimately making space for something that fills up my cup.

    It was then that I realized I needed to ask myself: how is it that some of us struggle to honor our commitments to the things we value most? In theory, we know what matters; our relationships, our health, our connection to something larger than ourselves, yet we let the daily grind pull us away.

    As I’ve begun to venture into new territory around coaching and building something of my own, I’ve learned that showing up, even when it feels inconvenient, is the foundation of a mindful and productive life.…

  • AN UPDATE ON CALIFORNIA’S RODENTICIDE BANS, FOUR YEARS LATER

    By Dan Scali

    Urgent: On September 24, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR) presented proposed mitigations for the use of blood thinning rodent poisons (anticoagulant rodenticides or ARs) as part of navigating the moratorium on all ARs. California law requires the department to show a meaningful reduction in the levels of ARs persisting in the bodies of non-target wildlife, before they can lift any of the law’s use restrictions. One of the more recent studies is this paper published in The Journal of Wildlife Management in October of 2024, which found that 98.1% of urban (including suburban) coyotes in Southern California were exposed to at least 1 AR. The department has shared no new studies, yet overall, their mitigations would allow a drastic increase in usage.

    The window for sharing public comment closes on November 8. Details to follow.

    I’ve been procrastinating for months now on writing this update to my 2021 blog post about California’s ban on rodent poisons known as Second Generation Anticoagulant Rodenticides (SGARs). Advocacy for environmental issues can feel so detached when results move at nature’s intended pace. Plus, the atrocities the Trump administration is perpetrating or planning to, on people and the planet, make many issues seem trivial in comparison. Meanwhile, raptors, mountain lions, and other wild animals nationwide continue to get sick, and often die by ingesting anticoagulant poisons designed to slowly kill rodents from internal bleeding. It’s a sure cause of suffering even the rats don’t deserve. I wish to apologize to our wildlife neighbors for my tardiness.

    On the rodenticide issue, there is cause for optimism in California as long as individuals, organizations, and legislators continue to act. To catch everyone up to speed, the proponents of bans on ARs did not stop organizing after the 2020 passage of AB 1788 put a moratorium on most uses of the more toxic second generation products. Despite the lower potency of First Generation Anticoagulant Rodenticides (FGARs) and industry preference for their more lethal cousins, there was already years worth of evidence that first generation poisons too, were showing up in non-rodents both directly and via poisoned prey. Plus, non-target consumption of FGARs was sure to skyrocket with the law allowing the pest control industry to largely continue using said variety of AR products; which, require more feedings to kill their targets.

    The advocates succeeded. They passed two more rodenticide bills, AB 1332 in 2023, and AB 2552, in 2024.…

  • The Night Shift: Bats Need Our Help

    By Whitney Grover

    .kb-image67733_70e2f1-b9 .kb-image-has-overlay:after{opacity:0.3;} Hoary Bat in flight / Josh Hydeman

    Halloween gives us the opportunity to think about all those spooky nocturnal creatures we often forget. Birds get a lot of love throughout the year, so as we deck our houses with spider webs and skeletons, stock up on candy, and don our costumes, let’s turn our admiration to the mysterious critters that take to the skies just after our songbirds tuck in for the night: Bats! 

    Bats are a critically important part of California ecosystems. Like birds, they provide many ecosystem services, namely pest insect control. We have an incredible 16 species of bats in the Bay Area. Unlike birds, we know little about their population sizes and distribution; but we know enough to see that bats are under threat. They face some of the same challenges as birds: habitat loss, decreased abundance of insects, predation from cats, and collisions with wind turbines. Additionally, they face unique threats like White-nose Syndrome, an introduced fungal disease which has killed many millions of hibernating bats since it was first discovered in a cave in New York in 2007. Bat Biologists are tracking the spread carefully, and so far the fungus has not been found in the Bay Area, but was recently discovered in California.

    In the Bay Area we do have wind turbines, which are particularly dangerous for the bat species that migrate. Roughly one million bats are killed from wind turbines in North America every year. There are two long distance migratory bats in Northern California: Hoary Bats and Silver-haired Bats. The Hoary Bat is common in the Bay Area and this species is of particular concern in the Altamont Pass Wind Energy Area. I sat down with Michael Whitby, Director of the Bats and Wind Energy Program at Bat Conservation International to learn more about how Hoary Bat populations are being affected by wind turbine collisions, and what we can do to help them. 

    Whitby was drawn to studying bats early in his career as an undergraduate student. Bats are mysterious animals, only active at night, and difficult to study. It’s no wonder we know so little about them, but Whitby was compelled by the challenging nature of the work. Part of the challenge and the fun of studying bats is the use of new technologies. Much of what we do know about bats is from acoustic detection and other modern and emerging technologies.…

  • Fire Restoration and Resiliency along the Carquinez Strait

    Join us and EBRPD for a habitat restoration event!

    By Whitney Grover

    California has a complicated relationship with fire. On the one hand, fire is a destructive force, threatening our homes and infrastructure, at times even our lives. On the other, fire is a part of our natural ecology; the indigenous peoples and their plant and animal relatives depend on fire to cultivate healthy ecosystems and foster abundant natural resources.

    .kb-image67696_a0585d-46 .kb-image-has-overlay:after{opacity:0.3;} Santa Clarita Wildfire by Jeff Turner, CC BY 2.0

    The fires we see today are not the same as the lower-intensity burns practiced by the indigenous people for over 10,000 years in California. Today fires are fueled by introduced plant species and dryer, warmer weather conditions. They burn hotter and faster due to a century of fire suppression practices. The landscape as a whole is no longer sprawling wilderness with natural breaks in the patchwork of biomes, but a sprinkling of homes and businesses ever at risk of being in the fire’s path. 

    Land managers like East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) have their work cut out when it comes to preventing high-intensity fires in the future, and dealing with burn areas in the aftermath of a fire. On the south side of the Carquinez Strait, nestled between the towns of Crockett and Port Costa is an EBRPD property that exemplifies the need for fire resiliency and restoration. They refer to it as the Scenic Fire Restoration and Resiliency Project. The site certainly is scenic, but also lies just north of Carquinez Scenic Drive. The best place to access the trails is the Bull Valley Staging Area. 

    .kb-image67696_ee919d-af .kb-image-has-overlay:after{opacity:0.3;} Ariel View of Carquinez Strait via U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Digital Visual Library CC BY-SA 3.0

    As you head out on the trails you’ll be surrounded by the rolling golden hills and Turkey Vultures soaring above. As you round a corner, the Carquinez Strait comes into view. But most notably, you’ll recognize the stands of eucalyptus, jutting up, impossibly tall and lean in what was once an oak savanna. European thistles and grasses dominate the understory. With the combination of this vegetative fuel, dry hot windy weather, and the unique steep sloping topography, the “fire triangle” is complete, and the site is extremely prone to fire. 

    The first fire at the site in recent history was in 1983, before EBRPD acquired the property. That fire cleared all the eucalyptus, but without ongoing management of the resprouts, they grew back.…

  • That Night Feeling

    By Whitney Grover

    Photo by Keith Maley

    It’s dark but only just dark, maybe a street light or a bright moon casts a blue glow over the world. You feel a little lonely but also exhilarated, not at all tired. The first stars twinkle and the vastness of the night sky adds to your mixed emotions, something between melancholy and tranquility. What you are feeling is That Night Feeling. There’s a small dimly lit corner of the internet devoted to expressing it and trying to capture it with images. The subreddit, r/thatnightfeeling, wraps up the description, “homesick for something you can’t quite remember.”

    Is this what a Swainson’s Thrush feels the night it decides to leave the comfort of the only home it’s ever known to find a jungle 3,000 miles away? On a cool fall evening here in the bay, the sun sets, and perhaps the young bird is overwhelmed with That Night Feeling and takes off into the darkness, heading on its epic migratory journey to Central America. 

    Or perhaps I’m taking too much liberty, anthropomorphizing. I will say, thinking about the hundreds of thousands of birds that take to the skies in North America every night during the fall migration adds to my Night Feeling. I am in absolute awe of their migration and their ability to arrive in places they have never been before, using the stars and natural night sky to navigate. But that awe is dampened, or maybe electrified, by fear, dread for the labors they face along the way.

    There are the dangers that have always been there: you could have always gotten lost, you could have always misjudged the weather and gotten caught in a storm, you could have always succumbed to a predator waiting in ambush for the moment you land. But now there are new challenges, challenges you didn’t have the chance to prepare for: your main navigational tool is gone, you can no longer see the stars, you can no longer see a dim haze of last light on the horizon. The landscape is sprinkled with dozens of glowing orbs brighter than any moon. Where there were trees there are now buildings, invisible to you but hard enough to stop you dead in your tracks. The creeks are gone and instead, streams of cars transect the landscape. New predators wait in ambush.

    The super bright skyglow emanating from large cities attracts birds.…