• Save the Planet in Your Spare Time

    By Joyce Mercado

    Birding brings us great joy. We love observing and identifying our feathered friends.  Unfortunately, climate change is a big threat to birds.  Audubon’s research shows that two-thirds (389 out of 604) of North American bird species are at risk of extinction from climate change. The good news is that if we act now, we can help improve the chances for 76% of species at risk.  So what difference can individuals with busy lifestyles make?  It turns out to be a big one!  

    Leaders influencing others in their communities to protect the climate is an essential element in fighting climate change.  Anyone can be a leader, including you, even if you have a pretty packed schedule. My new book Save the Planet in Your Spare Time – A Climate Protection Handbook for the Busy Person chronicles my journey to becoming a climate protection leader in Alameda so others can learn from my experience. Below are a few highlights from the book.

    Nathan Staz/Unsplash

    I started by reducing my greenhouse gas emissions by hauling my bicycle out of the garage and using it  instead of my gas-guzzling vehicle to run errands. I changed all of my light bulbs to compact fluorescents then LEDs.  A home energy efficiency audit provided several good suggestions for reducing my gas and electricity usage, further reducing emissions. I got better gas mileage when I did drive, by getting my car serviced on schedule, clearing stuff out of my trunk, carpooling for kid activities, and properly inflating my tires.  I embraced the four R’s of reduce, reuse, recycle, and rot (compost).  I purchased a reusable coffee mug, reusable water bottle, cloth napkins instead of paper napkins, and dishcloths instead of paper towels. I stopped most junk mail by calling the catalog companies to remove my address from their distribution list.  I switched to a primarily plant-based diet. I also avoided food waste by making soups, omelets, and stir-fries out of wilting vegetables and shopping with a list of recipes planned for the week.  When doing laundry I switched to using cold water instead of hot or warm water. I installed solar panels, replaced our gas dryer with an electric dryer, and recently purchased an electric vehicle.

    Phillip Strong/Unsplash

    All the time I was making these changes though, I was thinking “but I’m just one person”. How can I influence others to make changes in their lifestyles as well besides just leading by example?…

  • Birding the Bay Islands: The crazy chaos of nesting season on Alcatraz

    By Helen Doyle (All Photos and Story)

    Alcatraz Island is quieting down as another nesting season wraps up. The Peregrine falcon and Western gull chicks have fledged, the Brandt’s Cormorant chicks are as big as their parents, the Snowy Egrets and Pigeon Guillemots are mostly gone. Another generation flies the coop. Just what makes this rocky island such a fabulous nesting location?

    My interest in Alcatraz’s unique seasonal bird population was piqued when I had the opportunity to visit frequently as a volunteer with the Alcatraz Historic Gardens program. More of a plant person than a birder, I’m intrigued by different habitats and the wildlife they support (hence, my interest in writing the Birding the Bay Islands series: Bair, Angel, and Mare).

    Few birds were visible on the Parade Ground on this calm December day, with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.

    Less than two miles from San Francisco, Alcatraz Island offers 22-acres of critical nesting habitat for many shore and water birds. It’s noisy and smelly and fascinating.

    By May, Brandt’s cormorants have staked out their nesting spots on the Parade Ground.

    The human history of Alcatraz is a multi-layered, mostly painful story. While there’s no evidence that the Ramaytush Ohlone and other indigenous people of the Bay Area had settlements on the island, they may have visited the island to harvest eggs and birds for food, to conduct ceremonies, and to isolate/ostracize members of their tribes who violated tribal law. It should also be noted that indigenous people used the island as a refuge from the oppresive California Mission system, and once the island became a prison, many Native Americans were incarcerated for resisting the allotment of tribal lands and refusing to send their children to boarding schools.  We don’t know what the local indigenous people called the island prior to colonization by the Spanish. Juan Manuel de Ayala named it Isla de los Alcatraces (“Isle of the Pelicans”) in 1775, recognizing its abundant bird population. Alcatraz had the first lighthouse on the Pacific coast (built in 1854), was an important military base during the Civil War, became a military prison, and finally was a brutal federal prison from 1933 to 1963. From 1969 to 1971, local Native Americans and members of the American Indian Movement took over the island as part of the nationwide activism around indigenous rights and sovereignty (see We Hold the Rock for more about indigenous history and occupation).…

  • Monitoring Mount Sutro

    By Dominik Mosur

    For much of my birding “career” I have been drawn to the concept of Patch Birding. This is an approach to birdwatching where a specific site is visited on a regular basis allowing for a real-time glimpse at the timing of migrant arrivals and departures, breeding behavior, and the influence of seasonal changes on bird activity.

    In fall of 2022 I was notified that Golden Gate Bird Alliance was looking for an observer to continue a multi-year project to survey Mount Sutro Open Space Preserve. I jumped at the opportunity to put my patch birding proclivity to a constructive purpose. 

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    The Preserve has been the site of  a years-long restoration effort and these surveys are designed to tell us how this is affecting the birds that live here. Swaths of the Preserve that had for decades stagnated under a canopy of mostly Blue Gum Eucalyptus towering over Himalayan Blackberry and English Ivy have been opened up and revegetated with native shrubs and annuals. This restoration has created a mosaic of habitat much closer to what would have been present prior to the establishment of San Francisco. 

    Reflecting now on my own two years of accumulated data as well as data gathered by previous surveys dating back to the spring of 2019 and incidental eBird data from other observers, a picture of what is happening has begun to emerge.

    The Preserve is a permanent home to about  25 species of birds. In addition, another 30 species are present only as breeders or non-breeding season visitors. Over 110 species in total have been noted to date. Some of the more notable are as follows:

    .kb-image64815_8a52a2-da .kb-image-has-overlay:after{opacity:0.3;} Allen’s Hummingbird at Mount Sutro by Catie Michel

    Allen’s Hummingbird — The Preserve has one of the higher densities of nesting Allen’s Hummingbirds of any site in San Francisco. This is important because this “fog-belt” obligate hummingbird has been notably declining in much of its range along the coast of California. Interestingly, perhaps due to the higher elevation on Mount Sutro (~550-900 feet) Allen’s Hummingbirds tend to arrive here a week or two later than they do in other parts of San Francisco at lower elevations.

    Band-tailed Pigeons — Formerly known in San Francisco only as fly-over migrants and dispersers, Band-tails are now established as localized breeders in the City, with  Mount Sutro and surrounding areas making up the core of their range.…

  • Birding the Bay Islands: Bair Island’s Tidal Food Court

    by Helen J. Doyle and Jeanette Pettibone

    Bair Island’s restored tidal wetlands provide a variety of food found in high tide waters and low tide exposed mudflats for both year-round residents and thousands of birds migrating through or overwintering in the Bay Area. 

    Located just east of Highway 101 near Redwood City, Bair Island is part of the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, an impressive multi-agency effort to restore the South Bay’s natural wetlands. Bair Island’s primary habitat is tidal wetlands, dominated by salt marsh-loving plants like pickleweed and gumplant, bounded on the landward side by shrubland. Twice a day the exposed mudflats serve up abundant food for a variety of shorebirds, waterbirds, gulls and terns. Shorebirds are especially cooperative and fun to watch in such an exposed and expansive landscape. They move slowly as they use their bills to forage in the mud, their long legs keeping their bodies above the water. A terrific time to watch the Bair Island food court is on ebb tide, with the birds descending on the freshly exposed mudflats as the tide goes out. This is a great place to bring a scope, if you have one.

    Like Mare Island further north in the San Pablo Bay, Bair Island may not have always been an island like it is today. As elsewhere in the San Francisco and San Pablo Bays, the shoreline has been molded and shaped to serve agricultural and industrial uses. In the 1920s, cattle were raised here by Fred Bair, for whom the island was named. Subsequently, they were part of the complex of salt evaporation ponds along the Bay shoreline. In the 1970s and 1980s, housing developments were proposed for Bair Island until local conservation efforts succeeded in protecting it and ultimately incorporating it into the extensive Don Edwards Refuge. Now the approximately 3,000 acres of Bair Island is part of the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project, converting just over 15,000 acres of industrial salt ponds back to tidal wetlands and other habitats. This and other efforts to restore native habitat and prepare for sea level rise were recently funded through the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law announced in March by US Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, and Wade Crowfoot, Secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency.

    Marbled Godwits search for food in mud exposed by the ebbing tide by Helen Doyle

    On our first outing to Bair Island, a calm late January morning between winter storms, we neglected to coordinate with the tides.…

  • Birding the Bay Islands: Bair Island’s Tidal Food Court Copy

    by Helen J. Doyle and Jeanette Pettibone

    Bair Island’s restored tidal wetlands provide a variety of food found in high tide waters and low tide exposed mudflats for both year-round residents and thousands of birds migrating through or overwintering in the Bay Area. 

    Located just east of Highway 101 near Redwood City, Bair Island is part of the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, an impressive multi-agency effort to restore the South Bay’s natural wetlands. Bair Island’s primary habitat is tidal wetlands, dominated by salt marsh-loving plants like pickleweed and gumplant, bounded on the landward side by shrubland. Twice a day the exposed mudflats serve up abundant food for a variety of shorebirds, waterbirds, gulls and terns. Shorebirds are especially cooperative and fun to watch in such an exposed and expansive landscape. They move slowly as they use their bills to forage in the mud, their long legs keeping their bodies above the water. A terrific time to watch the Bair Island food court is on ebb tide, with the birds descending on the freshly exposed mudflats as the tide goes out. This is a great place to bring a scope, if you have one.

    Like Mare Island further north in the San Pablo Bay, Bair Island may not have always been an island like it is today. As elsewhere in the San Francisco and San Pablo Bays, the shoreline has been molded and shaped to serve agricultural and industrial uses. In the 1920s, cattle were raised here by Fred Bair, for whom the island was named. Subsequently, they were part of the complex of salt evaporation ponds along the Bay shoreline. In the 1970s and 1980s, housing developments were proposed for Bair Island until local conservation efforts succeeded in protecting it and ultimately incorporating it into the extensive Don Edwards Refuge. Now the approximately 3,000 acres of Bair Island is part of the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project, converting just over 15,000 acres of industrial salt ponds back to tidal wetlands and other habitats. This and other efforts to restore native habitat and prepare for sea level rise were recently funded through the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law announced in March by US Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, and Wade Crowfoot, Secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency.

    Marbled Godwits search for food in mud exposed by the ebbing tide by Helen Doyle

    On our first outing to Bair Island, a calm late January morning between winter storms, we neglected to coordinate with the tides.…