By Miya Lucas
Sora is the name of a fictional character in a Japanese video game.  Sometimes trying to view a Sora rail is so challenging that you may feel like it is a fictional character as well.
Soras are secretive and stealthy. I enjoy hearing the Sora’s call and song, and occasionally seeing the actual bird, at Las Gallinas Sanitary Ponds in San Rafael, where I lead a monthly field trip with Wendy Beers.  We in the Bay Area are fortunate to live in one of just two regions – northern/central California, and southern Arizona/New Mexico – that are home to Soras year-round. Their preferred habitat is freshwater marshlands, usually with a water depth of 12 to 20 inches.
“Thin as a rail”: The phrase originally referred to a fence or a bar. However, it would be an appropriate phrase for a Sora rail as well.  Although the Sora’s length is 8 to 10 inches, it can compress its chest wall to a width of 1.5 inches, allowing it to walk in and out of thick-growing reeds or cattails. If threatened, it sometimes dives for cover under water and all you can see is its yellow beak sticking out.
Male Sora by Miya Lucas
Female Sora by Miya Lucas
The male Sora is just a tad larger than the female. They look very similar and both have a bright yellow beak, but the female Sora has lighter black coloring on her face and throat.
I especially enjoy hearing the Sora’s call. It reminds me of the childhood game of tag, like a child’s high, sing-song voice shouting….yourit! yourit! yourit!  They also have a loud, fast horse-like whinny that slows down so you can hear each note.  The best opportunity to hear a Sora is during mating season.
They can also be heard at night, in spring migration, and when feeding.
Sora courtship behavior has three stages. The first stage is visual — what I call the flirty stage. The male and female stand near one another for 15 to 30 minutes, watching and being watched. The second stage continues the watching but adds grooming or preening before the other Sora. If all goes well, in about two to four weeks, the Soras move on to preening and grooming each other. Soon afterwards, copulation occurs.
Nest construction is done by both the male and female. The male Sora brings materials, and the female constructs the nest. …

By Eric Schroeder
My wife and I have been members of Golden Gate Bird Alliance for about five years, but until last year we had only been marginally active, occasionally attending the monthly talks in Berkeley. Then last year I enrolled in a year-long Master Birding Program that was co-sponsored by GGBA and the California Academy of Sciences, and, as a result, I was very excited when I received the list of Birdathon outings. Two in particular caught my eye.
The first was the Big Six Hours in Oakland trip—six hours of birding in Oakland (!) with the chance to see over one hundred species. Frankly, it was the preposterousness of the claim that hooked me. How could anyone see one hundred species of birds in Oakland? Let alone in six hours?
But trip leader Glen Tepke knows his Oakland. The day seemed much more like a whirlwind than a marathon, with stops at Sibley Regional Park, Joaquin Miller Regional Park, Lake Temescal, Lake Merritt, Middle Harbor Shoreline Park, Garretson Point, and Arrowhead Marsh. Highlights for the day ranged from a pair of Golden Eagles to a Cassin’s Vireo. At 1:15 p.m., Glen had 101 birds on his official Birdathon list and I had done a respectable job of keeping up, recording 95 species on my personal list.
The 2016 team for Big Six Hours in Oakland, with Glen Tepke in front
Cassin’s Vireo by Bob Lewis
My second Birdathon event was the 146 (!) Birds in a Day in the East Bay Parks event. I call this trip an “event” because I’m not sure there’s a more appropriate term for this marathon outing. When I arrived at Del Valle Regional Park at 5:45 a.m. for the dawn chorus, I was surprised to see that there were already about a dozen people there—and some, it turned out, had been there for almost an hour. (Now THAT’S dedication to birding!)
Led by East Bay Regional Park District biologist Dave “Doc Quack” Riensche, this trip visits many of the gems of the East Bay Parks system, including Del Valle, Shadow Cliffs, Sunol, Garin, and Coyote Hills. And whereas the Oakland trip had featured a pair of Golden Eagles, this one featured a pair of Bald Eagles: At sunrise the pair were spotted bringing food back to their nest for the chicks that had been born earlier in the month.
146 Birds in a Day trip in 2015, at Coyote Hills / Photo by Ilana DeBare
Least Tern at Hayward Regional Shoreline, one of the sites visited in the 146 Birds in a Day trip / Photo by Rick Lewis
These two Birdathon trips were highlights of my 2016 Big Year.…

By Corny Foster and Matthew Zlatunich
This March marks the fifth anniversary of Golden Gate Bird Alliance’s Snowy Plover Habitat Maintenance Program at Crissy Field. During monthly volunteer sessions, we’ve learned a lot about the habitat and avian residents at Crissy Field beach. We’ve also learned a lot – maybe more than we wanted – about the trash that shows up there.
To mark the fifth anniversary, here’s a history and progress report on this successful grassroots effort.
The Crissy Field Wildlife Protection Area — a favorite winter roosting site for threatened Western Snowy Plovers — is in the Presidio of San Francisco, and extends from Torpedo Wharf through the Crissy Beach West Dunes.
Before March, 2012, maintenance activities within the Crissy WPA were informal and irregular. They included efforts organized by the National Park Service and GGBA, as well as by individuals on their own, to collect trash, remove invasive weeds, plant native vegetation, and provide outreach/education to the public. But we knew a better job could be done.
The Crissy Field Wildlife Protection Arela
In February, 2012, we worked with Laura Elze, Volunteer Coordinator for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area’s Facilities Management Division, to establish a monthly program aimed at stewardship of the Crissy WPA as suitable habitat for Snowy Plovers.
Objectives of the Snowy Plover Habitat Maintenance Program are to support the mission of the National Park Service, to support the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s Western Snowy Plover Recovery Plan, to promote individual stewardship of natural resources, to engage people and build community around the ideals of ecological stewardship, and to help visitors see and appreciate a natural beach on the shoreline of San Francisco Bay. 
GGBA volunteers hard at work
Another productive clean-up session!

Maintenance Mondays

Meeting on the second Monday of each month as a volunteer-driven program without the attendance of Park Service staff, we began our work in March, 2012. We remove debris and non-native vegetation, inspect signage and fences, and report needed repairs. We also monitor and document wildlife usage of the WPA. Regular participants are uniformly attired in Park-issued hats, vests, and nametags.
We use the SFSnowyPlovers Yahoo Group to communicate with interested parties, provide automated reminders of workdays, and to house documents and pictures related to the snowies and the program.
Since the WPA is small, we wanted to keep the head count at around six people per work day To do this, we list the volunteer opportunity at GGBA but not through the Park.…

By Ilana DeBare
Golden Gate Bird Alliance and allied conservation groups reached a compromise with San Francisco city officials on Tuesday, in which we agreed to support the city’s new Natural Areas Plan in exchange for removal of a harmful project component at Sharp Park golf course.
The Significant Natural Resource Areas Management Plan (SNRAMP) had been under development since 2006, with countless hours of community input. It is aimed at creating a framework to manage the city’s natural areas over the next 20 years.
Golden Gate Bird Alliance had long been involved in helping formulate the plan and strongly supported the concept of a master plan to protect and enhance the city’s natural areas.
But the plan hit a stumbling block when, late in the process, the city added the controversial Sharp Park golf course redevelopment project to SNRAMP. Sharp Park is home to two endangered species – the California red-legged frog and San Francisco garter snake – and the city had plans to raise the height of the fairways in a way that would jeopardize their habitat.

GGBA and its allies mounted a campaign urging the Board of Supervisors to remove the Sharp Park project from SNRAMP so the golf course redevelopment could undergo its own separate, comprehensive environmental review.
On Tuesday, shortly before the Board of Supervisors was set to vote on SNRAMP, Supervisor Aaron Peskin forged a compromise in which the city agreed not to raise the height of the Sharp Park fairways. In exchange, GGBA and our allies (including Wild Equity, Sierra Club, and National Parks Conservation Association) agreed to drop our appeal over inclusion of the golf course project in SNRAMP.
With this compromise in place, the Board of Supervisors voted 9-1 to let the SNRAMP move forward.
Enactment of SNRAMP is a significant milestone for the City of San Francisco. It’s one of the country’s most thoughtful and progressive plans for promoting wildlife and habitat in an urban area. It establishes a framework to protect and enhance 32 areas where city dwellers can enjoy the beauty and solace of nature.
Red-tailed Hawk in Glen Canyon Park, one of the natural areas included in the plan, by Lee Hong Chang
2014 CBC in McLaren Park, one of the areas included in the Natural Areas Plan / Photo by Marissa Ortega-Welch
Golden Gate Bird Alliance is pleased to see this plan – so long in development, with so much community input – finally approved.…