• 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.…

  • Learn more about GGBA’s upcoming Bird Art and Holiday Sale!

    By Daryl Goldman

    There were many challenges this past spring, but while sheltering in place, I found some unexpected joy: the silencing of the traffic allowed me, despite a hearing deficit, to awaken to an overwhelming dawn chorus outside my urban window.

    Another joy: my work on the GGBA Bird Art Auction we held in May. It was so much fun to search for and discover artists who love birds and incorporate birds into their art! I loved talking to the artists, and learning about them, and the challenges the pandemic has posed for them. Working as part of a team with the other auction volunteers, and our members’ enthusiasm for the art was so gratifying. We raised over $20,000 through the auction to benefit Golden Gate Bird Alliance and the 22 artists who shared their work with us.

    This fall, GGBA would like to once again combine fundraising for all Eco-Education and habitat restoration programs with shopping for beautiful bird-themed art. You can do your holiday shopping from the comfort and safety of your home, and support GGBA and these wonderful artists at the same time. As with our online auction, we will split the proceeds 50/50 between artists and GGBA.

    This Holiday Art and Gift Sale will be a fixed-price online sale with multiples of most of the items; that way more people can shop and find gifts to give for the winter holidays and not worry about competing against others in an auction.

    I have to admit I felt a little bit of a let-down after the auction ended. It was a rush to monitor the auction and watch our members bid so generously. Once I started the search for new artists for this fixed-price online sale, I felt a sense of purpose and excitement return.

    We will have 11 new artists and 6 returning artists, and a much wider range of art mediums. Here’s an overview of some items for sale: giclee art prints; ceramic bowls, vases, canisters, and cups; decorative art tiles; hand sewn messenger bags; tote bags; potholders, tea towels, scarves and pillows; bird-friendly single source chocolate; prints on wood blocks; wallets, pins, coasters, and magnets; bird sculptures; needled felted bird figures and ornaments; toddler’s clothing; and cards and calendars! Each item will all have a bird on it.

    Below are some of the beautiful pieces available for this sale.

    Laura Zindel of Vermont: “Wren Mug”

    John Beasley of Medicine Bluff Studio: “Flying Barn Owl”

     

    Casey Riley of Laterzees: “Black-necked Stilt Bag”

    Sylvia Gonzalez from Petaluma: “Silver Barn Owl”

                                                

    Amy Rose Moore: “California Quail”

     

    Rigel Stuhmiller: “Varied Thrush”

     

    Maggie Hurley: “Belted Kingfisher”

    My job, for the past few Birdathons, has been to find prizes for our highest fundraisers.…

  • Refuge Takes Flight

    By Mark Lipman

    Editor’s Note: We are happy to offer GGBA members the opportunity to watch Refuge, a beautiful new film portrait of a wildlife refuge in California’s Central Valley that was recorded over the past three winters by director Mark Lipman. Mark has kindly extended free viewing for GGBA members through October 4th. This blog piece details Mark’s development of the project. Links to the film are included in Mark’s bio.

    It’s been really gratifying to offer my new film, Refuge, to GGBA members during the month of September and to see that so many of you have watched it! The filming and sound recording have been a labor of love over many winters and slowly evolved into this dawn-to-dusk portrait of the Gray Lodge Wildlife Area in Gridley.


    Ironically, I didn’t set out to make a film. I had been making social issue documentaries for many years when a friend introduced me to Gray Lodge in 2011. I wasn’t a birder at the time, but the beauty of the place and the symphony of bird sounds touched me very deeply. On subsequent visits I did a bit of filming and some of that early footage made its way into States of Grace, a documentary I was making with my wife, Helen Cohen, about a friend’s recovery process after narrowly surviving a head-on crash on the Golden Gate Bridge. The bird imagery became a reflective respite in the film and a metaphor for freedom and mobility.

    We were consumed with the distribution of States of Grace for several years after its release in 2014 and it’s only in retrospect that that I can see the germination of Refuge during that time. In late 2015 I visited the Fort Mason Center for the Arts to see its exhibition of Janet Cardiff’s sound installation, The Forty-Part Motet. It’s a magnificent recording of a 16th-century motet in which each of the 40 singers is miked separately and each voice is played back through one of 40 speakers that are arranged in a large oval. You can stand in the center and be engulfed by the entire chorus or go up to a speaker to hear an individual who is singing.

    This picture doesn’t show it, but when I was there people were so moved by the piece that many had tears in their eyes and couples were holding each other closely.…

  • Another Strong Year for Snowy Plovers at Ocean Beach and Crissy Field, As a New Overwintering Season Begins

    By the Snowy Plover Monitors at National Park Service

    Western snowy plovers are back on Golden Gate National Recreation Area beaches! They weren’t gone for very long. These small, federally threatened shorebirds leave Golden Gate to breed each spring, and return each fall to spend the winter feasting on beach invertebrates. Between the early and late breeders coming and going, June is often the only month plovers are absent.

    Average snowy plover counts rose to a new high at Crissy Field this past winter. Monitors recorded about eight plovers per survey, roughly double the 2006-2019 average! Photo by NPS / Katie Smith

    This year, despite some COVID-19 disruptions, the snowy plover monitoring team was mostly able to continue keeping track of the Golden Gate’s plover population. They counted the last overwintering birds on April 29, and the first new arrivals on July 7th. A preliminary look at their data from the last year reveals an overwintering population that was above average at Ocean Beach, and larger than ever at Crissy Field.

    After decades as a US Army airfield, a massive, collaborative, restoration effort led to Crissy Field opening as park land in 2001. In 2006, a handful of western snowy plovers took notice and began overwintering among the restored dunes. However, counts remained in the single digits. Monitors would record three to four plovers per winter survey, and occasionally spot eight or nine birds on the beach at one time. In 2018-2019, the team counted a new high of 11 plovers on the beach at once. This past year, that maximum count was up to 12. Average winter counts rose to a new high as well. Monitors recorded about eight plovers per survey, roughly double the 2006-2019 average!

    Snowy Plover by Jerry Ting

    The Ocean Beach plover population is much older, and biologists have monitored it since 1994. Over the last 26 years, they have counted an average of 30 plovers per winter survey. This past season, the monitoring team counted around 49 plovers per survey. In addition, the maximum number of plovers they counted on the beach during a single survey (96) was the second-highest max count on record. It is the sixth winter in a row that counts have been above average on Ocean Beach

    Snowy Plover by Eric SF

    One continuing threat to snowy plovers’ recent success is people and unleashed dogs disturbing them inOcean Beach and Crissy Field Wildlife Protection Areas.…

  • The Butterflies of Mount Sutro

    By Liam O’Brien

    When I surveyed all the butterflies of San Francisco County in 2007 (and again in 2009) Mount Sutro was not one of my ten transect sites. I dismissed it as a horrifying example of “Sutro’s Gift” of eucalyptus from the early 1900s – a monocultural wasteland.  I knew of Craig Dawson’s work and all that the Sutro Stewards had done. How an amazing oasis had been created at the summit. But part of this dismissal was the knowledge that few butterflies would probably make this journey through the trees; so few are reported to penetrate a forest (at least a eucalyptus forest).  I didn’t even think it was worth the arduous trek to look for anything.

    Lucky for me an offer came around last January from Noreen Weeden, GGBA’s former Volunteer Services Manager. Would I be interested in a year-long, thorough inventory of the butterflies of Mount Sutro?  I’d worked for Noreen and GGBA in a similar gig out at Pier 94 a few years back. The thought intrigued me. I flipped my dismissive hypothesis on its head and asked, “Just what butterflies do use Mount Sutro?” I said yes and had my first visit in late January.

    Well, it doesn’t get any better than starting off a project like this with a Mourning Cloak.

    Mourning Cloak by Liam O’Brien

    One of our most unique and beautiful (personally subjective call) butterflies, Nymphalis antiopa was basking in the morning light on a post. A true “harbinger of Spring,” over-wintering adults (the flying phase) emerge in late January from cracks and crevices they’d been sleeping in since the prior fall. Named by Linneaus after a small town in England, this butterfly throughout Europe is called the “Camberwell Beauty.” Mourning Cloaks were thought to have multiple generations (a couple of flights per season) but it turns out that there is only one generation with individuals living up to nine months! This makes it the longest-living species in North America each year. The primary thrill for me was I don’t get to see this creature very often in San Francisco. The chocolate brown field (the overall background color of the wings) with white bordered fringe is usually seen along riparian corridors and streams where its primary host plant (the plant or family of plants she lays her eggs on) willow (Salix sp.) is found in great abundance. Another cool factoid on the Cloak: if one sees the white border on this creature full and complete it’s a guarantee that it is a freshly enclosed (or just emerged from chrysalis or pupa) individual.…