Spring on the Summit

Spring on the Summit

By Liam O’Brien

 

“Mysterious and little known organisms live within walking distance of where you sit. Splendor awaits in minute proportions.” – E.O. Wilson, Biophilia.

 

I’d like to start this off with a correction for my last blog entry. Celia Ronis correctly pointed out recently that my sentence structure made it sound like Linnaeus gave the Mourning Cloak butterfly it’s other well-known name, the “Camberwell Beauty” He did not. What I was trying to say was that it was Linnaeus who named the butterfly to science. Is it any wonder I received A for content and C for grammar on my papers in high school? Thanks Celia for pointing that out!

On the way up to Mount Sutro one day in early May, I observed a Black Phoebe – a bird I consider to be the super Pterodactyl of butterfly eaters.

Trying to bridge the worlds of birders and butterfly enthusiasts here, it might be an appropriate point now to point out the obvious to many: butterflies, though celebrated for their pollinating skills (which is somewhat overrated) ultimately, are bird food. Spiders, lizards, dragonflies, and many other small predators eat butterflies as well when the opportunity presents itself.

I was in the Presidio once photographing a California Tortoiseshell butterfly and I observed a Black Phoebe through the lens snatch it away for a midday snack. Butterflies have evolved many ways to dodge this fate: mimicry, false heads and colors that help them blend into the background. This day I crossed paths with one of the best examples of this, the Gray Hairstreak (Strymon melinus).

Gray Hairstreak by Liam O’Brien

The Gray Hairstreak is a perfect example of a butterfly with a false head on its backend. There is a real eyeball on the real head and a large fake eyeball/dot on the edge of a large orange spot on the other side. A real set of antennae above its real eye and the threadlike hairs coming off the fake head that represent faux antennae. That’s where the name “Hairstreaks” come from. Many of our Lycaenidae (the family this butterfly belongs to) in San Francisco take it one step further with a motion called “scissoring”- a type of twitching and rubbing of the hind area to draw attention the predator’s attention away from the real head. One sees many butterflies with v-shaped notches out of the wings. These are what we call “bird strikes.”…

The Anatomy of a Fundraising Event

The Anatomy of a Fundraising Event

By Daryl Goldman

 

We’re almost halfway to our goal of $20,000 for GGBA’s second online fundraiser, our Bird Art and Holiday Sale. I hope you will keep shopping and tell your friends about our fundraising sale. The sale has been extended to November 3rd! If you’d like to go directly to our sale, please click here. Thanks for helping raise money for GGBA programs!

I’d like to share my experience as the lead volunteer on this online event. Maybe my experience will encourage you to volunteer for any future sales that GGBA may have. Or perhaps you could propose your own fundraising event that fits your interests and talents.

For those of you who want some more excitement in life because of pandemic-related restrictions, I recommend working on a project like this. Thanks to your collective support we sold $5,700 of art on the first day of our sale! That was so very exciting. It was like seeing your first Pileated Woodpecker or being the first to spot a rare bird. Well, maybe more like going on a GGBA birding trip to Chile and being surrounded by colorful birds you have never seen.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

July and August were an especially fun part of this fundraiser because that is when I started the search for the artists and formed our working relationships. Over 90% of the artists I contacted responded right away, and with enthusiasm. It was great to get to know them and learn about their work.

During this first step of the fundraising process, I followed up on a couple of recommendations I got for artists who were featured in GGBA’s first online fundraiser, our May 2020 Bird Art Auction. I was able to get in touch with artists from the May auction who said that they would be interested in participating in future events with GGBA and who had items in a certain price range. After that, I searched the internet for more artists, using every combination of words that I could think of that had to do with “birds” and “art.” I followed trails from Instagram pages, Etsy, art festivals, and galleries. I probably spent way too much time doing this, but it was fun and a great escape from the reality of the pandemic and the escalating insanity of politics. When I wasn’t searching for art, I was writing postcards for Reclaim Our Vote, so my days felt structured and meaningful.…

Vote!

Vote!

By Pam Young, Executive Director

 

You are the most important person in the world.

Because this is the year that you decide the future of your planet.

You are reading this because you love our Bay area birds, wildlife, wilderness, and all that they represent. So, please, act to protect what you love. Please. Please. Please. Vote!

Male Greater Sage-Grouse by Bob Gunderson

Did you know that new science says that all living creatures are genetically related?

Yes, really! …except for viruses.

So, think of all biota (sans viruses) as your family.

As a family, we sustain each other.

This holds true for life in the air, life on land, and life in the sea.

And this year, with this most important election of your life, we all sink or swim.  VOTE!

Here are some facts.

Fact: Even though voters’ concerns about our climate crisis ranked higher than ever before, over 10 million environmentalists did not vote in 2016. Look how that turned out…

Fact: Since 2016, over 30 environmental laws, regulations, and measures have been removed, rolled back, or set aside. Without these protections, the climate crisis will escalate to a climate catastrophe and one million wildlife species will go extinct.

Fact: If all – or even most – environmentalists vote this year, we will have the best chance at restoring all the environmental laws, regulations, and measures.

Protect our favorite wild places and species, their habitats, and the clean air, soil, and water that sustain all life!

Vote!

Fact: Earth Overshoot Day fell on August 22, 2020.

What is that?

It’s “the day when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that period.”  Yes. We seriously overshot….

What can we do? Plenty!! Advocate! Educate! Activate!

Roll up your sleeves and here we go….

  1. Vote
  2. Show up for public decisions and tell your leaders that you are an environmentalist and you want to protect our natural resources first and always.
Western Burrowing Owl by John Ehrenfield
  1. Study and learn about the leading technologies that replace environmentally harmful extractive industries with sustainable and regenerative practices. Advocate for these new beneficial practices!
  2. Support your favorite conservation and environmental organization. Support GGBA and… VOTE!
  3. Do one thing every day that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion.
  4. Ask yourself, What can I do to help save my favorite wild place? Do the research and find your answer.
…
Learn about the Artists of GGBA’s Bird Art and Holiday Sale

Learn about the Artists of GGBA’s Bird Art and Holiday Sale

By Daryl Goldman

 

The GGBA Bird Art and Holiday Gift Sale is taking place right now in our online store (click here to go to our store) and runs until 9 pm Sunday, November 1. This sale is serving as a fundraiser for GGBA as well as a way to help artists make a living during these difficult times. We’re hoping that this fundraiser helps make up for some of the revenue GGBA lost when we had to cancel this April’s Birdathon fundraiser.

I am so grateful that these amazing artists have agreed to participate and are sharing 50%, (in some cases more!) of the proceeds of their sales with GGBA. Many of them have been affected by the closure of the galleries and stores due to the pandemic so please help us support them while they support us.

I wanted to share with you a little about each of the 15 artists that are participating in this sale.

Each of these artists were chosen because they include birds in their high quality work. Some of these artists are very well established and highly recognized. Others are artists that are just now starting a business. All of them bring immeasurable talent to GGBA. We are immensely grateful that we can collaborate with these talented folks.

So without further ado…

Rigel Stuhmiller

Rigel Stuhmiller’s Roadrunner wall art.

Rigel Stuhmiller – one of the very popular artists from the GGBA Bird Art Auction last May – has enthusiastically agreed to participate in this fundraising sale.

This time, rather than offering a limited number of options, Rigel has very generously offered to open up almost her entire inventory for our fundraiser. Our members will be able to click on a link to her website and shop to their hearts’ content.  GGBA will get 50% of the the proceeds from almost all her items when the code “GGBA” is used. If you would like to shop on Rigel’s website, please click here.

Rigel is a Berkeley-based printmaker and illustrator. Her line of notecards, wall art, scarves and home goods featuring her artwork can be found online and in over 500 museums, botanical gardens and boutiques across the country. When designing her products she chooses environmentally friendly options sourced as locally as possible.

Rigel believes in giving back to the community so she donates 5 cents for every item sold to the Alameda County Community Food Bank. …

Smoke, Water and Birds: 10 Hours at Sea on a Pelagic

Smoke, Water and Birds: 10 Hours at Sea on a Pelagic

By Elliot Janca

 

Editor’s Note: Toward the end of September, when the skies were dense with smoke and fog, teenage birder Elliot (accompanied by his father, John) took a Pelagic tour to see as many birds as they could. This tour was part of a prize Elliot won in GGBA’s Young Birders Contest (a feature of this year’s truncated Birdathon event).

 

Because my dad and I live in San Francisco, we had to wake up at 3:30 in the morning to get to the dock on time.

As tired as we were, we somehow made it to Monterey in one piece. It was a foggy day, and both the night and the orangish-yellow smoke amplified it so that everything had a slight haziness to it.  The boat was medium-sized and was pretty stable.

Boat on the water by John Janca

As we boarded, we could hear Belted Kingfishers rattling and terns squawking around us. A Peregrine Falcon watched from its post, overseeing our journey out to the ocean. As we left the port’s safety, the smog closed in and shadowed our boat in a shroud out of which we could not see.  However, as our vessel slowly moved farther offshore, into deeper waters with faster winds, the fog started to lift, and with it, the birds came in.

Small rafts of Sooty Shearwaters flowed past us while Common Murre parents with their young attempted to swim away from the boat.

Common Murre by Elliot Janca

 

Common Murre by John Janca

 

Flock of Sooty Shearwaters by Elliot Janca

There was a profound difference in their method of swimming. While the shearwaters looked like they were hurriedly walking away from the ship, their little bodies swaying side-to-side, the murres preferred to rapidly foot-peddle with the occasional wing stroke. Most of the time, the murres ended up flying, but once we had a murre who was quite adamant in its belief of being bound to the water. Probably too fat to take to the air, it loudly butterfly-swam 50 yards, its tiny wings pushing it up and forward over and over again like a little windmill.

Sooty Shearwater taking off from the water by Elliot Janca

Tiny phalaropes made their way among the waves, fishing for shrimp.  Distinguished from the sooties with their mostly white underside, larger size, and bi-colored bill, Pink-footed Shearwaters soared around the boat, watching it careen through the water.…