• 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 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 SparrowAn 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.…

  • 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.…

  • Oakland CBC: From Fog to UFO’s

    By Ryan Nakano and Viviana Wolinsky

    The fog is thick. The air, brisk. A small group of “early birders” strike out before the sun has time to show its face. It’s barely 5 a.m., and Dave Quady shines his flashlight after sensing a movement in the trees at the end of a side street near Claremont Canyon. At the edge of the beam, a Western Screech-Owl, the first bird seen and documented for this year’s Oakland Christmas Bird Count. Even before the Western Screech-Owl sighting, the group heard Great Horned Owls shortly after 4 a.m., softly calling as the birders emptied out of their vehicles near signpost 28. 

    “We listened to them for a while and went a bit further down Claremont Avenue, not wishing to attract smaller owls into the bigger owls’ neighborhood because they might be preyed upon,” Quady reminisced. “That’s when I saw the Western Screech-Owl and it was very, very satisfying.” 

    Fog amongst the trees at Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserce on the day of the Oakland CBC. Fog amongst the trees at Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve on the day of the Oakland CBC by Patrick Coughlin

    The day, as early and as gloomy as it was, was off to a great start.

    As time went on, the sun eventually broke through the fog and more and more groups of birders gathered and dispersed, splitting off into smaller groups to cover 30 areas within the 15-mile diameter Oakland count circle. Two-hundred and sixty participants organized into teams via the impassioned work of Oakland CBC co-compilers Viviana Wolinsky and Dawn Lemoine. Eighty-seven of these birders were participating in the Oakland CBC for the very first time and 44 participants were beginning birders [or quite new to birding].

    Utilizing  eBird, the online tool that tracks bird sightings worldwide, for the first time in the Oakland CBC history as the main form of documentation, the groups submitted their bird observations tallying a preliminary number of 184 different species seen on December 19, 2021. 

    Black Turnstone at Albany Bulb on Oakland CBC by Alan Krakauer

    Out of all these species, one was designated the “Best Bird” of the count. Its claim to fame rests primarily on its very first sighting on the day of the Oakland count, a count with records that date back to 1938. 

    Seen by the Emeryville Crescent group, over 45 Black Skimmers, tern-like birds with strikingly large red and black underbite bills, were spotted at Radio Beach area with peeps, ducks, gulls, and terns.…

  • SF Bay Ospreys 2021 Season

    By Osprey Cam Video Assistant

    Comparing our past five seasons of Osprey cam footage, I’d have to say the 2021 season was one of the best for our SF Bay Osprey family. Three healthy juveniles were successfully launched into the world while the infamous Ospreys we know as Rosie and Richmond, worked together seamlessly and devotedly from beginning to end.

    It all began on a beautiful afternoon in mid-February. The winds were soft, the air clear, when an Osprey landed lightly on the nest. Someone in the live chat noted the arrival. Would it be another floater? Richmond? The camera zoomed in. A surprised yet triumphant cry, “It’s Rosie!”. It was her earliest return yet recorded, and the joy of her successful return raised everyone’s spirits after a long, pandemic-shrouded winter.

    Rosie the Osprey returns to the nest by SF Bay Osprey CamRosie returns to the nest by SF Bay Osprey Cam

    Despite Rosie’s early return, Richmond was remarkably absent. Days passed, and while Rosie was frequently seen around the nest area, she was always alone. Did Richmond even realize she was back? In years past he had appeared within minutes or at most hours of Rosie’s return (see all of Rosie’s arrivals and departures over the years). Finally, a full week after her return, both Rosie and Richmond appeared at the nest together. The season could finally begin. 

    Rosie and Richmond on the nest by SF Bay Osprey CamRosie and Richmond on the nest by SF Bay Osprey Cam

    After a few weeks spent rebuilding the nest and getting reacquainted, Rosie laid her first egg March 24, about a week early from previous seasons. Seventy-one hours later came the second egg, and 73 hours after that, on March 30, the final egg was laid. 

    If you haven’t followed the Osprey cam for long, one thing you need to know is that Richmond absolutely loves being a dad. He and Rosie vie for the chance to sit on the eggs, and occasionally Richmond will even position himself right next to Rosie to “help”.

    Rosie and Richmond coincubate eggs by SF Bay Osprey Cam Rosie and Richmond coincubate eggs by SF Bay Osprey Cam

    Fishing and Banding and Surprises, Oh My!

    Right on schedule, the first egg hatched May 3. One of the musically inclined Live Chatters, craigor, put the first bobblehead to music. By May 5th, Rosie and Richmond had three healthy Osprey chicks to feed. Richmond, who had been bringing 12-15 fish per week during incubation, started ramping up his deliveries, and just a few weeks later was bringing 25-30 fish per week, many of them trout from the San Pablo Reservoir 7 miles away. …

  • Field Guide: An Artist’s Approach to Avian Taxonomy

    By Christopher Reiger 

    In March 2020, I was excited. After 15 years of full and part-time jobs in administration and communications, I was finally in my studio five days a week and our two young boys were both in daycare programs. Creatively, I was cranking. In addition to a number of in-progress illustration and design jobs, I’d just completed studies for eight new works on paper. On social media, I shared a photo of my studio wall covered with freshly-pressed sheets of watercolor paper; the caption read, “Those blank sheets? They won’t be blank for long.” 

    Overnight, though, the pandemic made me a stay-at-home dad. Because the boys were so young (4 and 2 at the pandemic’s start), it was challenging, but, like parents everywhere, I made do. Yard exploration and reading were our go-to sanity-saving activities. Outside, we flipped fieldstones in search of ring-necked snakes and arboreal or California slender salamanders, and we watched California scrub-jays, bushtits, oak titmice, acorn woodpeckers, and many other local bird species work through the valley and coast live oaks. Inside, we embraced twice-daily epic story blocks, reading The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, the Narnia Chronicles, the Harry Potter series, Wind In The Willows, The Jungle Books, and more. By the time the boys were asleep at day’s end, I was beat; my only working window was 8 p.m. to midnight, but “dadding” exhaustion made it difficult for me to take on many illustration/design gigs, and my art practice was completely fallow.

    Still, bleary though it was, my mind needed a creative outlet. In the days’ interstitial spaces, I started turning over an unrealized idea I’d jotted down in a sketchbook years ago – “create bird species paint chips.” There was a germ of something exciting there, but what? 

    Acorn Woodpecker in the "bird species paint chip" project Field Guide.Acorn Woodpecker in the “bird species paint chip” project Field Guide.

    Then came the summer of 2020. As our society wrestled with racial injustice, past and present, I found myself thinking a lot about how we humans classify and catalog life. The social implications of our evolved human impulse to categorize are generally grim (see: human history), but that same proclivity allows us to better appreciate evolution and the relationship between species, subspecies, and ecotypes. As a natural history nerd, I value taxonomy’s utility, but I’m also enamored of its flux and ever-provisional nature. I decided that the “paint chip” idea must be realized as a project that playfully celebrates and critiques the necessarily imperfect science of taxonomy.…