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Earth Day 2020: Reflections

Editor’s Note: Some of our GGBA staff and board have compiled their reflections on what Earth Day means to them and the actions we can collectively take to continue to protect the environment—and birds—we love.

Pam Young, Executive Director

I am very fortunate to be alive on another Earth Day, to take stock of our collective wellness, and recommit to foster actions that promote more biodiversity in every landscape, wetland, and seascape, big and little. My lodestar is native habitat. We need more of them. We need more clean air, more clean soil, and more clean water. From these actions, more habitat will follow, and healthy habitats that will help reduce the negative impacts of climate change.

Is Earth Day just a day on our calendar? Its meaning and value fraught with layers from politics, to religion, to economics, to no meaning whatsoever. Is Earth Day weighted down by sound bites and branding? Let’s take today to re-elevate Earth Day. Make today a real opportunity to celebrate the Earth, even if for a moment. Even if just to go birding.

Marbled Godwit by Briton Parker

Let’s set aside that glaring reminder of the angst many of us share at what’s been plundered, abused, and killed by a thousand cuts.

Earth will prevail – with or without us.

From one of my favorite nature writers, Gary Lopez: “But for ….the keening of fifty species of birds, it is as quiet as the moon….you turn your cheek to the source of light and feel sheltered; you see amid the dwarf birch and dwarf willow at your feet speckled eggs cradled in birds’ nests. The grace so apparent in first life seems nowhere else so tender….”

I am in love with our Earth!

Melissa Ramos, Communications Manager

I still have a lot to learn about how to better care for our Earth. Today I am contemplating ways I can help our planet by taking actions such as reducing my plastic use and eating a predominately plant based diet. I am also reflecting on my own personal history. Like many Dominican-Americans, I too am descended from native Taino, Indigenous and African populations that once occupied the island of Hispanola (now the modern day Dominican Republic and Haiti). Although I am two generations removed from the Dominican Republic, I am more interested than ever in reclaiming my heritage. A large part of this is learning how Tainos loved and cherished the planet.…

Earth Day at 50

By Maureen Lahiff

I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, famous for the burning Cuyahoga River in summer 1969. There had been several fires on the water before that one, the largest in 1952. There were steel mills, chemical companies, and lots of other manufacturing in the Flats along the river.

Here on the West Coast, more than three million gallons of oil spilled off Santa Barbara when a Union Oil well blew out. This disaster in January 1969 was a major catalyst for the first Earth Day. The US did keep President John F. Kennedy’s pledge to land a man on the moon and bring him safely back to Earth before the end of the 60s, but in 1969, our home planet was in dire straits.

1970 is before the landmark environmental legislation, before there was an EPA, before DDT was banned. As I spend today in reflection, I am in awe at the power of what young people coming together can accomplish.

The famous Apollo 17 image that John McConnell used for the Earth Day flag.

The first Earth Day: April 22, 1970

Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin usually gets the credit, but several legislators, including California’s Representative Pete McCloskey, and environmental activists made the first Earth Day happen. It is estimated that over 2,000 colleges and universities, over 10,000 high schools and elementary schools, and communities all over the country marked that first Earth Day. Mayor John Lindsay agreed to shut down 5th Avenue in New York City and made Central Park available for Earth lovers. Over 20 million people, one-tenth of the US population at the time, participated in Earth Day in some way.

In February 1970, students at San Jose State held a Survival Faire and buried a new yellow Ford Maverick.

University of Michigan students put the 1959 Ford Sedan on trial. Image courtesy of University of Michigan.

In April 1970, I was a student at the University of Detroit. That’s close to Ann Arbor. As part of a four day teach-in in March, a “trial” (called, The American People vs. the American Sedan) was held. Of course, the trial was rigged, and the 1959 Ford sedan was executed. The April 2020 edition of the Smithsonian magazine has a story with more details.

What happened soon afterwards

President Nixon proposed the EPA in July 1970.

The agency was up and running before the end of the year, with William Ruckelshaus as the first administrator.…

Now Is The Time To Garden For Birds

By Kathy Kramer

Birding from home has become more important than ever in our current sheltered situation. Many of us are learning that it is possible to bird from our windows, yards and sidewalks. There are easy ways to make your home (and surrounding areas) hospitable for birdlife, even while sheltering-at-home. When we learn to include in our gardens the plants that provide food, shelter, and nesting areas for birds, we can watch native wildlife thrive.

California Swainson’s Thrush by Pam Young

Gardening for birds is crucial to helping the birds we love. You have likely heard that bird populations have plummeted over the last five decades, with a decline of nearly three billion birds across North America in that time period. The causes of this decline are many but include habitat loss, non-native ornamental plants, outdoor cats, roadside mortality, climate change, and building lights (which disrupt bird migrations and reduce birds’ food supply when moths exhaust themselves on outdoor lights). The current shelter-at-home orders have allowed some local wildlife to flourish again, but there’s so much more we can do to continue to encourage native populations to grow. This is especially true for birds.

Black-headed Grosbeak by Mark Rauzon

The link between bird health and native plants is also becoming clearer. On the subject, wildlife ecologist Douglas Tallamy writes, “We must abandon the notion that humans and nature cannot live together… In order to have functioning ecosystems, we need to redesign residential landscapes to support diverse populations. Native plants support much more life than other [types of plants]. Choosing the best plants for your area is the key to [nature’s] success.”

The backstory behind the native versus ornamental non-native plants issue is fairly simple: while in the nest, and even after they leave it, almost all baby birds feed primarily on caterpillars. Baby birds do not live on seeds, or berries, or sugar water. Caterpillars are not optional in a baby bird diet. Simply put, if we don’t have caterpillars, we won’t have baby birds.

Female Red-winged Blackbird by Alan Kraukauer

Here’s an example: it takes 6,000 to 9,000 caterpillars, collected by both busy Chickadee parents over the course of sixteen days, to raise a clutch of Chickadee babies. And Chickadees are tiny birds; just a third of an ounce. How many caterpillars does it take to raise a Woodpecker, a bird about eight times heavier? Caterpillars come from the eggs of butterflies and moths, creatures who have specialized laying their eggs on just one or two types of host plants.…

Street Life: The San Francisco Edition

By Richard Bradus

One of the (few) benefits of this crisis is the marked reduction of traffic and the attendant noise, allowing us to hear so much more of what is going on along our neighborhood streets.

I have been doing exercise walks around Western Addition, Pacific Heights, and Presidio Heights over the past week. Even without binoculars, I have been treated to some nice discoveries.

All I’ve had to do is listen and investigate.

California Towhee by John Sharpen

The California Towhee are obviously common all over the city, but I was unaware that they were present (and active) outside of parks and natural areas. I have encountered several singing from street trees, including near Alamo Square. There’s one Towhee on Scott Street (a few blocks south of Alta Plaza Park) in tree that could be a potential nesting site as well.

South of Alta Plaza, I have seen Bushtits putting the finishing touches on their nests in a tree. In the same area, I saw a White-crowned Sparrow in and about a probable nest site in dense shrubbery in front of the adjacent house.

Bushtit by Angie Vogel

Foraging in the street trees in multiple places are a good assortment of warblers (including a Black-throated Gray Warbler!), Bushtits, Chickadees and the oft skirmishing hummers and increasing numbers (ugh!) of Crows.

Black-throated Gray Warbler by Daniel Cadieux

It’s worthwhile to look up at the sky as we walk about, too.

Yesterday, I was treated to a spectacle as a diminutive Sharp-shinned Hawk made a couple of unsuccessful attacks on a small flock of pigeons, whereupon the pigeons (which looked to be a bit larger than the hawk) turned the tables and actually went after the hawk, apparently chasing it off! Today, over the same California/Fillmore area, there was a Peregrine Falcon intermittently soaring and flapping as it made its way west, having apparently cleared the skies of any other birds.

Sharp-shinned Hawk by Jerry McFarland

So, when you get outside to do your necessary exercise or needed grocery runs, take your time and listen. Glance at the sky every so often.

It is spring and, yes, we may be frustrated to be missing out on the hunt for migrants, but remember our local birds are setting up to breed. Those of you in the western half of San Francisco may find that White-crowned Sparrows, in particular, are nesting in a lot more front and backyards than we ever suspected.…

Sheltering in Place: Zuihitsu

By Gerry Traucht

Editor’s Note: Gerry offers us glimpses of what he sees on his Berkeley strolls. This unique collection embodies the qualities of the beloved Japanese poetic form, Zuihitsu. Zuihitsu is genre of Japanese literature (since adapted by many Western writers) consisting of loosely connected personal essays and fragmented ideas that typically respond to the author’s surroundings. Photos taken by Gerry.

For over a year a Black-crowned Night-Heron has claimed a dumpster on 4th Street behind Market Hall and Peet’s Coffee. Migration and hunting are not his thing, but possibly there is a better story to why he stays here.

Black-crowned Night Heron.

He’s a familiar sight. He has an audience, often photographing him. The dumpster is his stage.

In a pose for the camera.

Now that the nearby restaurants are closed, the dumpster is largely empty, the streets are empty.

Nearby, the Great Blue Heron roams Cesar Chavez Park and the Berkeley Marina.

Great Blue Heron, touching down.

Blue skies, Bay views, San Francisco.

California Gull at Cesar Chavez Park. Usually on the same shoreline rock opposite the Golden Gate Bridge.

In observation.

My backyard Raven greets me from his usual perch above the deck. It was my birthday. Nice timing.

A birthday greeting.

He comes for short visits most days. Because his beak isn’t especially heavy, I don’t know if he’s a Raven or a Crow. He does have the Raven ruffled collar feathers, but not much. He’s a bit brownish, not Crow-black.

Perched.

When he’s hungry, he brings his mate. They’re a twosome, as Ravens often are. He seems bigger than a Crow. Not by much.

What do you think?

Is my Raven a Crow?

Early April at Aquatic Park, Berkeley.

An unusual hunt.

A Great Egret was side hunting with neck and head approaching parallel to the water. He circled, slowly. This side-ways neck technique is the first time I’ve seen it so quickly repeated in prolonged hunting.

https://goldengatebirdalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/8_Traucht_Side-Hunt_video.m4v

He high-stepped and leaned sideways until he spied his target. Every minute or two he had a fish.

Recently, this stylish bird gave the backyard’s other plum tree a visit. Black Phoebe. 99%. That is what my iBird identifier says.

The Phoebe.

But he’s brown.

In the bird books, he resembles an Eastern Phoebe by the color of his back feathers but not the chest pattern.…