By Alan Hopkins

With a bird list of more than 200 species, the Presidio has become a beloved site for Bay Area birdwatchers. The area has diverse habitats: ocean, bay, marsh, riparian, woodland, and more.

Founded in 1776, the Presidio was a military installation established first by the Spanish and held briefly by the Mexican Government. Then in 1846, after the Mexican American War, the Presidio became a holding of the United States. The 1,491 acre base was decommissioned in 1989 and became part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in 1994. Like some other military bases, large tracts were left undeveloped and as a result, remnants of San Francisco’s original flora and fauna can still be found there.

My personal history of birding the Presidio goes back to the 1970s and birding with Mary Louise Rosegay when the base was still run by the army. One of the first female graduates of Cornell’s orinthology program, Mary Louise was an avid birder and advocate for the Presidio’s birds. She wrote the first bird list for the Presidio as well as countless letters trying to protect the birds and their habitats. I have a vivid memory of seeing my first Red Crossbill on a trip Mary Louise led for Golden Gate Bird Alliance. The Presidio wouldn’t be what it is today without Mary Louise and the young people she inspired.

Fort Scott at the Presidio / Photo by Alan Hopkins

Mary Louise wouldn’t recognize parts of the Presidio today. Since it became a national park, an enormous effort has been made to restore much of its natural habitat. Back in its time as a military base, Crissy Field was an asphalt lot surrounded by a cyclone fence, El Polin Spring was a 1950s-style picnic area at the edge of a landfill, and Lobos Dunes and Presidio Hills held large parking lots and ball fields. As restoration continues and new habitats become mature, the Presidio will look much different in the future than it does today.

There isn’t space to go into depth about all the Presidio’s birding hotspots, so here are some highlights.

Northern Coastline from Fort Point to Crissy Field

The Golden Gate Promenade runs from the Marina to Fort Point and offers spectacular views of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay, and the city skyline. Many of the Presidio’s 5 million annual visitors use this path.

Historic Fort Point has Pigeon Guillemots nesting in the gun turrets in the summer.…

By Della Dash

Everyone loves Burrowing Owls… once they actually see one.

As Burrowing Owl docents with Golden Gate Bird Alliance, we get the added thrill of helping people see their first owl and learn more about them. We’re monitoring owls, and creating owl allies!

GGBA will hold its annual training for Burrowing Owl docent volunteers this month, on Saturday, September 23. You’re invited to join us! (Details below.) But first, I’d like to share an update on our East Bay Burrowing Owl population.

Species of Special Concern

Once abundant throughout California, Burrowing Owls were a ubiquitous part of the Bay Area landscape. But as their habitat of open fields dwindled, so did their numbers. The Burrowing Owl is currently a federal and state “Species of Special Concern” and considered a likely candidate to be listed under the State of California’s Endangered Species Act.

Burrowing Owls are the only ground-dwelling owl in North America, and are typically the only owls likely to be seen roosting during daylight and hunting in the early morning and evening. Just 8-10 inches tall, they live in ground squirrel burrows or rocky outcroppings and hunt insects, rodents, and other small prey. They favor grasslands, open fields, and areas with low vegetation.

Burrowing Owl at Cesar Chavez Park by Mary Malec

For the population to recover, Burrowing Owls need safe breeding, foraging, and over-wintering sites. Although historically there were ample breeding populations throughout the Bay Area, the area around the Bay has now become primarily an over-wintering site. “Our” owls have been documented at summer breeding spots as far away as Idaho.

Local over-wintering sites include Cesar Chavez Park in Berkeley, Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline in Oakland, Coyote Hills Regional Park in Fremont, Shoreline Park in Mountain View, and Santa Clara County, where Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society manages property that holds a breeding population.

 

GGBA Docent Program

The East Bay Shoreline Burrowing Owl Docent Program, co-sponsored by Golden Gate Bird Alliance and the City of Berkeley, is intended to make parks and open spaces more welcoming and safer places for over-wintering Burrowing Owls. GGBA docents invite all park visitors, with a special focus on dog walkers, to look through a viewing scope or binoculars to see the owl(s). We focus on three main messages:

1) Keep all dogs leashed, except in the designated off-leash areas.

2) Don’t allow dogs to approach the owls or chase any other wildlife in the park.…

By Bob Lewis
With our temperature climbing this week, some of us are wondering how birds deal with elevated temperatures. Remember, they’re sitting inside a feather quilt. A review of Cornell’s Handbook of Bird Biology and a bit of personal experience provide some clues.
Like mammals, birds control their core body temperature in a fairly narrow range. For birds, that range is usually 39-43 degrees C (102-109 degrees F). Usually the ambient temperature is lower than the bird’s body temperature, and the bird’s metabolism produces heat to keep warm. But when the outside air rises above about 40 degrees C (104 degrees F) the bird’s metabolic heat will cause it to get too warm. So the bird needs to cool down.
Humans perspire, and the evaporation of sweat cools the body. The most obvious ways a bird can utilize evaporative cooling is by panting or gular fluttering (looks like vibrating the throat), which increases airflow across moist surfaces and increases evaporative cooling. But of course this results in water loss. Birds can also lose water vapor through their skin, even with their feather coat. Although they don’t perspire, this water loss still results in some cooling. It’s important that birds have access to water when the temperature is high, to replace that lost to cooling processes. Without water, hyperthermia can result and can be lethal. Keep your bird bath full!
American Robin at a bird bath by Bob Lewis
Greater Roadrunner panting, by Bob Lewis
Birds move to shady areas when it gets hot, and often in the heat you can see a bird under a bush in the shade, panting. Some birds like the Turkey Vulture urinate on their bare legs, increasing evaporative cooling in that way. Other species like Black-necked Stilts wet their feathers in a stream or puddle, and then return wet to their nests to cool nestlings. Shorebirds standing in water lose heat through their legs, and will stand with both feet in the water on hot days, as opposed to the well-known single-legged posture when the weather is chilly.
Birds in normally hot areas often have lower metabolic rates, producing less body heat so panting isn’t as necessary. Even so, on a warm day in South Africa, a panting White-breatsed Chat and Spotted Eagle-Owl posed for pictures.
White-throated Chat panting, by Bob Lewis
Spotted Eagle-Owl panting, by Bob Lewis

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Bob Lewis, a former Golden Gate Bird Alliance board member and a birding instructor for 23 years, was awarded the American Birding Association’s Chandler Robbins Education/Conservation Award in 2016.…

By Eric Schroeder
This past spring I spent some time following the progress of a Brewer’s Blackbird family that built a nest on my horse trailer.  That concern was part of my larger interest in breeding birds, one cultivated by the Master Birding Program co-sponsored by Golden Gate Bird Alliance that I completed last year. But this summer, when I went to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia to dive, I had coral and fish on my mind, not birds. After all, July is winter there. Little did I think I would find a Red-tailed Tropicbird nesting under my bed.
Actually, I knew from past visits that tropicbirds had nested in front of the reef suite where my wife, Susan, and I stay at the Lady Elliot Island Eco Resort. But, as the sign posted for guests says, the birds nest there from September to May—not in winter. We hadn’t been back for a few years. The sign is now inaccurate. The tropicbirds have started coming twice a year. Their success story is part of a larger story of conservation success on this small coral cay, the southernmost point on the Great Barrier Reef.
Lade Elliot Island from the air by Ian Morris
Lady Elliot island and the Great Barrier Reef
Brown Noddies on Lady Elliot island by Eric Schroeder
The month of December—summer in the southern hemisphere—is a madhouse for breeding on Lady Elliot. Over 100,000 birds nest on this 110-acre island, so there’s a real competition for choice lots. In front of the unit that Susan and I usually rent, up to twenty pairs of Brown Noddies can be found nesting in a single octopus bush—it’s like a four-story apartment building for seabirds! And the tropicbirds nest on the ground underneath. Shearwaters and several species of terns also nest in great numbers on the island. There’s so much nesting that it generally takes new visitors a couple of days to adjust to the island’s noise level: The sound of birds calling, squawking, and shrieking slows down a bit at night but never completely stops.
But July, the peak of wintertime, is a quiet month here. Other than the Buff-banded Rails, Silvereyes, and House Sparrows that have colonized the island and are permanent residents, other birds can be few. Some Reef Herons, a pair of frigatebirds, a White-bellied Sea Eagle. A flock of terns showed up for a day but moved on.…