By Sierra Glassman

Competition has been ingrained in birding culture for a long time. Surprisingly, only one birding competition has ever occurred between Stanford and Berkeley, back in 2014. That is until this past spring, when the Bears for Birds and Stanford Birdwatching Club matched up once again. 

Established two years ago, Bears for Birds is UC Berkeley’s undergraduate club for birdwatchers. This spring, we met twice a week for indoor meetings and birding excursions. Since January, an idea had been brewing to organize a Birdathon with the Stanford Birdwatching Club. After discovering Berkeley lost the last Birdathon in 2014 (covered in this article), we could not let it stand and quickly contacted the Stanford Birdwatching Club. Their leadership team was receptive, and proposed we do an “exchange program” leading up to the big day, where we would visit birding spots together near each other’s campuses. 

During the first exchange, the Stanford Birdwatching Club came to Berkeley. We took them to Cesar Chavez Park and Vollmer Peak in Tilden Regional Park.The ecosystem was unbalanced, with Bears outnumbering Redwood Trees 14-3. Though we outnumbered Stanford, we couldn’t help but admire their phenomenal birding skills. 

“I remember (Adam Burnett) pointed at three dots that were barely visible through binos and called out the species (Bald Eagles),” Greg Salazar, a member of Bears for Birds, said.””As they got closer I saw he was right and it was really cool for me to be with someone who was such an expert.” 

After encountering a flock of White-throated Swifts and a Cooper’s Hawk we reached the peak overlooking the bay, where we took group photos.

Stanfordians become the avians at Vollmer Peak.

Next, we birded along the northeast edge of Cesar Chavez Park, looking for Burrowing Owls, without success. I talked with Maya Xu about recording falcons nesting on Stanford’s tower similarly to the Berkeley Campanile falcons (she was interviewed about the Hoover Tower falcons here). Before we knew it, the sun was setting, and we sat cross-legged on the fake grass next to the parking lot, eating pizza and sharing our favorite parts of the day. 

Black Turnstone at Cesar Chavez Park. Photo Credit: Zihan Wei

A month later, it was the Bears’ turn to enter enemy territory. We joined Stanford at the Palo Alto Baylands, where we immediately sighted an elusive Ridgeway’s Rail. The marsh was teeming with bird life. Sparrows sang from the bushes and peeps ran across the mud.…

(This blog was originally published at Josh Kornbluth’s substack But Not Enough About Me here)

By Josh Kornbluth

As usual, Sara noticed it first: the freckle in this White-tailed Kite’s right eye. Photo: Sara Sato As usual, Sara noticed it first: the freckle in this White-tailed Kite’s right eye. Photo: Sara Sato

My wife has uncanny bird-spotting abilities. We’ll be tooling along on our bikes on the San Francisco Bay Trail and Sara, riding ahead of me, will suddenly signal that she’s about to stop. Then she’ll jump off her bike and look through her binoculars at something in the distance. I’ll do the same — and see … nothing. No birds, I mean. But now she’s pulling out her camera, using its telephoto lens to confirm what she’s somehow picked up on: that way out yonder, what looked to me, even through my “bins,” like a tiny blur is actually, say, an Anna’s Hummingbird. She could tell from the silhouette: when it looks like there’s only one tiny leaf at the top of a snag, it’s likely to be a hummingbird.

The iridescent patch on the throat of Anna’s hummingbirds is called a gorget, maybe because it’s gorgets — er, gorgeous. (I’ll show myself out now.) Photo: Sara Sato

As for Kites, they need tall trees for nesting and nearby open grassland for hunting rodents — which they seek out by employing their characteristic hovering maneuver (“kiting”), then quickly swooping down on their prey. I’ll be honest here: at this very early stage of my birding apprenticeship, I didn’t even know that there were birds called Kites. In my defense, I grew up in Manhattan, where as far as I knew birds were either pigeons or — when Dad took me down to the Battery to ride the ferry — seagulls. (“Seagulls”: that’s what I spent 60-plus years of my life thinking they were called. But hanging out with birders has taught me to call them simply “gulls” — of which, it turns out, there are many kinds, some of them living far from the sea.)¹

When Sara first pointed and said something like, “Look — Kites!” I thought she meant those things that you fly from a string — in my mind, an excusable error, especially as we were quite close to César Chávez Park, where people do fly lots of kites.

We’d been biking past a grove of trees near what we had come to call the Weird Picnic Table.…

By Ilana DeBare

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Birdathon 2023 broke all previous records for a Golden Gate Bird Alliance Birdathon, raising about 50 percent more money than last year and engaging more participants than ever before.

So—before we get into the highlights—we need to give a really big THANK YOU to our amazing field trip leaders, fundraisers, Bay Birding Challenge team members, auction bidders and prize donors, Celebration Host Committee and volunteers, and of course all of you who made donations or paid to go on a Birdathon trip.

Why does this matter? As GGBA’s main fundraiser of the year, Birdathon is vital to our continuing work on habitat restoration, nature education, and conservation advocacy. Your Birdathon contributions are building a stronger chapter that can do more for our local birds and local communities!

Great Horned Owl photographed during the Bay Birding Challenge, part of Birdathon 2023. Photo: Tara McIntire

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Here are the numbers for Birdathon 2023, which officially concluded on May 21:

Total funds raised
$118,000

This total includes:

• Individual fundraising, including pledges for the Bay Birding Challenge and general donations to     Birdathon: $53,800
• Field trip fees: $42,000
• Auction sales: $14,200
• Celebration Host Committee donations: $8,300

(Note: These are rounded to the nearest $100)

By comparison, the total raised in 2022 was about $77,000. The total in 2019, our last fully in-person Birdathon before Covid, was $66,000.

This year, 23 volunteer field trip leaders hosted a total of 27 trips that drew 278 unique participants, many of whom went on multiple trips.

Twenty-eight auction prizes attracted 71 bidders, exceeding our budgeted goal for the auction by $2000.

Twenty-seven members formed our first-ever Birdathon Celebration Host Committee, with generous donations that allowed us to make the event free of charge. Ninety-eight people registered, our highest turnout ever.

Special thanks to our top individual fundraisers, who raised big sums from many, many small donors:

First place: Derek Heins, who raised $7,047

Second place: Dan Harris, who raised $4,390

Third place: Eric Schroeder, who raised $3,720

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Beyond the numbers, Birdathon participants dove into a wide variety of memorable and even once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Some 2023 trips were perennial Birdathon favorites that fill up every year; others were new destinations for GGBA.

“I’m an S.F. native (3rd generation) but had NEVER been on this hike,” said one participant in the Glen Canyon Birds and History field trip, led by Megan Jankowski and Evelyn Rose.…

By Blake Edgar

Bay Area birders in the market for new binoculars or a spare spotting scope know to migrate up the coast to Mendocino and stopover at Out of This World, an emporium for high-quality optics and science-focused activities. For 35 years, store co-owners Marilyn Rose and James Blackstock have been outfitting birders, skywatchers, naturalists, and other curious observers.

Marilyn Rose and James Blackstock

They have also been consistent contributors to Golden Gate Bird Alliance’s annual Birdathon. That support continues this year with a $500 gift certificate to Out of This World being among the items on the block for the Birdathon auction from May 7–21.

Birdathon volunteer Daryl Goldman says, “I have bought three pairs of binoculars from them over the years, and they were amazingly helpful and not pushy — in fact, often recommending lower-priced, better-quality bins.”

“We look at all the different models that are out there, and we pick and choose carefully,” says Rose, noting that “…we really help people figure out what the right model is for them.” Among the binocular options available are those from standard bearers Swarovski, Zeiss, and Leica, but Out of This World also stocks models from lesser-known, high-quality companies, including Opticron and Meopta. Binoculars and spotting scopes make up a large proportion of optics sales, which provide nearly two-thirds of the store’s business.

Scopes in Out of this World store window

Blackstock and Rose had Bay Area-based careers in the plumbing and banking industries, respectively, when the couple, Rose says, “decided to chuck it all and move” to Mendocino, a place they loved to visit. They had settled on opening a science store with an emphasis on astronomy and “thinking things,” but found that birdwatching and daytime nature observing grew in popularity while amateur astronomy waned.

Since 1998, Out of This World has occupied the corner Main Street location of a former bank built 90 years earlier. The old vault provides storage for the shop. Customers range from loyal local residents to international visitors who drop in while exploring the historic village, as well as plenty of folks following word-of-mouth recommendations. While Rose believes that optics shopping should be an in-person experience, the store also maintains an active online business.

Out of this World

Website sales helped sustain Out of This World during the shelter-in-place period that shuttered shops and truncated tourism. Throughout the pandemic, Rose and Blackstock retained their three long-term employees, including a former biology professor who helps with bird identifications.…

By Brandy Ford 

Walking along a dry sandy riverbed early one July morning in the Kern River Valley, we heard it—a slow, sharp bark building into a rapid rattle. The Yellow-Billed Cuckoo had spotted us. Before we encountered our elusive friend in this gentle riparian habitat on the edge of the Mojave Desert, Bruce Mast and a group of intrepid 2020-2021 Master Birder alumni had spent a few days and nights birding the Sierras.

Hammonds Dusky Flycatcher by Andersen Yun

Our trip began early on July 1, 2022. Disembarking from Porterville on Highway 190, we stopped in turnouts along the winding road to see Lazuli Buntings, Lawrence’s Goldfinches, a Chipping Sparrow, and Ash-throated Flycatchers. When we reached an elevation of about 7,000 feet, we pulled into Quaking Aspen Campground to bird an expansive meadow, go on an easy hike, and have lunch. It was a delight to see adult and fledgling MacGillivray’s Warblers and Dusky and Hammond’s Flycatchers. While heading back to the picnic area, we spotted two Pileated Woodpeckers ambling amongst downed timber and, over lunch, Green-tailed Towhees foraged on the ground around us. 

We headed south about a half hour to the Trail of 100 Giants. A meadow borders the trailhead parking lot, and, just beyond the asphalt, we saw a downy fledgling Warbling Vireo perched in plain sight on a small arched branch. As I closely observed the small bill and even smaller eyes peeking through the otherwise uniformly gray and round bird, it began to beg loudly for food. Its parents had arrived, and we stood by, watching it feed. 

Our home for the night was Holey Meadows campground just down the road. After setting up the tents, eating a delicious meal, and resting, we grabbed our binoculars and flashlights and walked down the road we had driven in on, searching for owls. As we walked along quietly in the dark, we saw the stars come up over the meadow and strained to hear the low calls of our nocturnal companions. And suddenly, we did. A Northern Saw-whet Owl gave a metered whistle and flew into a tree overhead. As Bruce turned on his spotlight, we saw its dark silhouette before it vanished just as quickly as it had arrived. 

Mojave Desert – Brandy Ford

The next morning we set out for the Mojave Desert, just beyond the Kern River Valley below. As we quickly descended into the desert, we pulled off the road once more to see a number of Band-tailed Pigeons clustered around a stream.…