• Birdathon 2017 – it’s a wrap!

    By Ilana DeBare

    Golden Gate Bird Alliance just wrapped up another successful Birdathon — great trips, great birds, and a great deal of money raised to protect Bay Area wildlife.

    Birdathon 2017 culminated with a festive garden party on Saturday, May 13, where we announced winners of the birding and fundraising prizes, as well as the local heroes being honored with our annual Elsie Roemer Conservation Award and Paul Covel Education Award.

    About 265 people took part in Birdathon events, which ranged from Big Six Hour trips to behind-the-scenes tours of California Academy of Sciences, International Bird Rescue, and Pixar, where attendees met the director of Piper, the Oscar-winning animated short about a young sandpiper. (It turns out the director is a fan of our Osprey nest cam and watches it over breakfast!)

    Behind the Gates trip to Hayward Shoreline Released a rehabilitated cormorant during the Behind the Scenes at IBR trip / Photo by Marjorie Powell Tasting gourmet chocolates during our first-ever Birds & Chocolate trip / Photo by Leonard Stanton

    Fifty inspired fundraisers spread the word about Audubon to their friends and family: Four raised over $2,000 each, and ten raised $1,000!

    In total, our generous donors and fundraisers generated over $57,000 — close to our goal of $60,000. (There’s still time to help us reach that goal: Click here to make a tax-deductible contribution to Birdathon.)

    And now… drumroll please… our award winners:

    Elsie Roemer Conservation Award

    Our top conservation honor — named after the Alameda activist and GGBA member who led numerous fights to protect East Bay shoreline habitat in the 1960s and 70s — went to Tony Brake. Tony, a longtime volunteer with Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, has been an outstanding leader of citizen science efforts to understand the population of nesting Ospreys along San Francisco Bay. He was also an invaluable help in launching the Bay Area’s first Osprey nest cam this spring.

     

    Tony Brake receives the Elsie Roemer Conservation Award from GGBA Executive Director Cindy Margulis.

    Paul Covel Education Award

    Named after the GGBA leader who introduced thousands of East Bay residents to nature as Oakland’s first city naturalist, this award went to Eddie Bartley, Jack Dumbacher, and Bob Lewis — founders and instructors of the Master Birding class that we’ve co-sponsored with California Academy of Sciences for four years. About 80 local birders deepened their birding skills, ornithological knowledge, and conservation leadership through the intense year-long class.…

  • Congratulations, it’s an Osprey chick!

    By Ilana DeBare
    Mother’s Day came early on top of the Whirley Crane — with the Osprey pair at the center of our live nest cam hatching their first chick early Friday morning!
    Rosie, the mother, was on the nest in the early morning hours as the first of two eggs hatched over a period of about nine hours. When the chick had pecked its way partly out of the shell, she picked up the discarded top half of the shell and tossed it out of the nest.
    What was at first only visible as a pink ball hidden deep with in the nest became a limp, squirmy creature… and then an active chick, holding up its head and begging for food. Richmond, the father, flew in with a fish and took part in the first feeding.
    Here’s a video clip of the family shortly after hatching:
    https://youtu.be/nS1r2jT1m0E
    And here are two photos of the chick during its first feeding, around 12:30 p.m. on Friday:
    Chick calls for food.
    Chick receives bits of fish from one parent while the other stands watch. Note the speckled second egg to its left.
    Golden Gate Bird Alliance launched the live nest cam of the Osprey nest at the end of March. Since then, over 24,000 have visited the nest cam web site at sfbayospreys.org to watch the pair incubate their eggs and prepare to raise a family.
    Rosie and Richmond’s first egg was laid on April 1st. Rosie initially laid three eggs, but she removed one from the nest on May 1 after it developed a crack and was no longer viable.
    The young Ospreys will spend 50 to 55 days in the nest before they fledge. Both parents will take turns feeding them and attending the nest to warm the chicks and protect them from predators such as eagles and ravens. The biggest potential threats to nestling Ospreys are predation, exposure, and lack of food.
    “Rosie and Richmond so far have been terrific parents,” said Cindy Margulis, Executive Director of Golden gate Audubon “They kept the eggs consistently covered and warm, fought off interloping birds, and rebuilt part of the nest when it was damaged during heavy winds. We’re hoping they will be just as good a team when it comes to feeding and tending their chicks.”
    While a successful hatch of Osprey eggs may seem routine, that has not always been the case.…

  • Top ten reasons to be a citizen-advocate

    Audubon members are great at being citizen-scientists!  No one lets their lack of a PhD stop them from contributing to the understanding of birds through Christmas Bird Counts, breeding bird surveys, and other field work.

    But protecting the birds we love takes more than citizen-scientists. We also need citizen-advocates… people who care about California wildlife and are willing to convey that passion to government policymakers.

    Audubon California will hold its third annual Advocacy Day in Sacramento on Thursday, June 8, 2017. We need some people to take part representing the Bay Area! No prior political experience necessary — only a love of birds and wildlife.

    Advocacy Day is fun, fascinating, and empowering. You’ll come away with a firsthand understanding of how our legislature works and how your voice can have a real impact. Golden Gate Bird Alliance member Chris Winn took part last year. Here are his Top Ten reasons to become a citizen-advocate:

    1.  The Capitol is a beautiful building, especially when the surrounding gardens are in bloom as they are in June.

    2.  I don’t think of the Capitol as “their” building but instead think of it as “our” building.

    3.  The State Senators, Assemblypersons, and staff people I speak to always make me feel at ease.

    Audubon members met with East Bay Assemblyman Tony Thurmond in 2016

    4.  Important bills are up for consideration each year, especially this year when California is trying to bolster our environmental standards against federal rollbacks.

    5.  I like to show newcomers the older, historic side of the building especially the contrasting portraits of Governors Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

    The famous portrait of Gov. Jerry Brown from his first terms in the late 1970s-early 1980s / Photo by Chris Winn

    6.  I found a perfect hidden coffee shop, one block from the Capitol and I’m willing to share!

    7.  The orientation meeting before going into the Capitol is informative and answers all my questions.

    8.  There are always enough folks so that nobody sees a legislator/staffer alone, but is usually sent in with someone fairly expert at the pieces of legislation under consideration.

    9.  There is usually a little after-party somewhere to meet new friends and compare notes.

    10.  I like birds!

    Sign up now! California birds need your voice. See audubon.org/get-involved/2017-audubon-california-advocacy-day for details, the day’s schedule, and registration. And email us if you want to find out Chris’s secret coffee shop.…

  • First BioBlitz at Pier 94 finds 168 species

    By Ilana DeBare
    The Audubon Christmas Bird Count has been called the grandparent of all citizen science events. That might make a BioBlitz the newest grandchild – young, tech-savvy, and inviting all ages to play.
    Like a CBC, a BioBlitz mobilizes regular citizens to document their nature sightings during a 24-hour period of time. But it includes not just birds but all kinds of living things, from grasses and lichens to insects, mammals, and mollusks. Participants don’t need to have any prior expertise, so it’s a great event for people new to nature or to the area, or for families with children. And it invites people to capture their sightings on their cellphones, so they can be easily ID’d with help from scientists and naturalists at the end of the blitz.
    On April 1, 2017, we were delighted to co-sponsor the first BioBlitz at Pier 94, a Port of San Francisco property along the city’s San Francisco’s southeastern waterfront that we are working to restore as wildlife habitat.
    SF Bay makes a stunning backdrop for counting shoreline species, Photo by Liam O’Brien
    American Avocets during the Pier 94 BioBlitzAmerican Avocets during the Pier 94 BioBlitz by Noreen Weeden
    Thirty-three participants of all ages fanned out across the five-acre site. They made 683 observations of 168 species, including 40 bird species.
    The most common bird sightings were Red-winged Blackbirds and American Avocets in breeding plumage, showing how birds have made themselves at home in both the wetlands and uplands sections of the site. Large numbers of Clark’s and Western Grebes, American Wigeons, Mew Gulls, Western Gulls, California Gulls, and Canada Geese were also found.
    All ages took part in the BioBlitz / Photo by Eleanor Briccetti
    Lincoln Sparrow during the Pier 94 BioBlitz by Liam O’Brien
    Among the non-avian species were a harbor seal, common raccoon, black-tailed jackrabbit, Olympia oyster, and Western pygmy blue butterflies. Although the blitz took place in the morning, a few hardy souls returned that night to look for moths. Heavy winds meant that they missed all but one species of moth, the white-speck. But being there at night allowed them to hear the shorebirds chattering at dusk and to see one unidentified species of bat.
    The Pier 94 BioBlitz was co-sponsored by Golden Gate Bird Alliance, California Academy of Sciences, the Port of San Francisco, and the EcoCenter at Heron’s Head Park. Liam O’Brien, San Francisco’s resident butterfly expert, helped with the planning and the event itself.…

  • Gardening for birds – some local models

    By Kathy Kramer
    In a charming New York Times article several years ago called The Chickadee’s Guide to Gardening, Douglas Tellamy wrote, “Chances are, you have never thought of your garden… as a wildlife preserve that represents the last chance we have for sustaining plants and animals that were once common throughout the U.S. But that is exactly the role our suburban landscapes are now playing and will play even more in the near future.
    “What will it take to give our local animals what they need to survive and reproduce on our properties? NATIVE PLANTS, and lots of them.”
    In fact, a pair of chickadees needs 350 to 570 caterpillars every day for sixteen days to raise a family, according to Tellemy! And it’s native plants that provide this kind of food source, while most non-natives do not.
    The large, iridescent blueback pipevine swallowtail butterfly lays eggs on Dutchman’s pipeline — the only host plant for the caterpillars of this native butterfly —in Glen Schneider’s Berkeley garden. Photo by Glen Schneider.
    Here in the Bay Area, we have an outstanding resource for people who want to create bird-friendly gardens — the annual Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour.
    Coming up on Sunday, May 7th, the tour will showcase how East Bay gardeners have attracted birds to their yards. This award-winning, self-guided tour features 40 beautiful Alameda and Contra Costa County gardens that are pesticide-free and water-conserving, provide habitat for wildlife, and contain 60 percent or more native plants.
    Below are descriptions of some of the gardens that have been particularly successful at attracting birds, along with a tip from each host for attracting our winged friends.
     

    Glen Schneider’s garden, Berkeley

    Glen Schneider converted a former driveway to a berry and vegetable garden, providing food for his family. The local native plants have attracted forty-six species of birds, twelve species of butterflies, and more than two hundred types of insects and spiders. Photo by Kathy Kramer.
    Tip: Garden with local native plants.
    Berries, seeds, nuts, nectar, pollen, nesting areas, and shelter are amply provided, and there is no deadheading in this wildlife- and insect-friendly local native plant garden. More than 90 species of local native plants have attracted 46 species of birds, 12 species of butterflies, and over 200 species of insects and spiders to the garden.
    Garden Talk at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.: How to create a wildlife habitat garden using local native plants, by Glen Schneider
     

    Merle Norman and Curtis Beech’s garden, Richmond

    The blossoms of the checkerbloom attract painted lady butterflies and skippers to Merle Norman’s garden.…