• 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.…

  • New season of Oakland heron rescues

    We’re delighted to launch a second year of rescuing young herons in downtown Oakland, together with our partners at Oakland Zoo and International Bird Rescue!

    The busy streets of downtown Oakland are home to about 130 nests of Black-crowned Night-Herons and Snowy Egrets, making Oakland the largest night-heron rookery in the Bay Area.

    But city streets are a dangerous place for young herons. If they fall from their nest or a branch before they can fly, there’s no understory or grassy ground to cushion their fall. They face broken bones, starvation, exposure, or injury by cars.

    So last year we convened a three-way partnership to rescue fallen and injured young herons, a partnership that is now back in action for the 2017 nesting season. So far, six young birds have been rescued this spring and are in rehabilitative care at International Bird Rescue. Two of these birds are scheduled for release back into the wild later this week.

    Young Black-crowned Night-Heron in care this month at Bird Rescue. Note the green and gold leg bandage. (Oakland A’s colors!) Photo by Isabel Luevano.

    “Last year we learned how effective partnerships can be in protecting urban wildlife,” said Cindy Margulis, Executive Director of Golden Gate Bird Alliance.  “We’re so pleased that these three organizations are cooperating again to save the lives of young birds hatched in a less-than-ideal location.”

    Trained volunteers from Golden Gate Bird Alliance check the streets surrounding the rookery daily for fallen and injured birds. Oakland Zoo staff also check the rookery each morning.

    Zoo staff retrieve a fallen bird from its reported location, provide intermediary treatment, if necessary, and transport the bird to International Bird Rescue in Fairfield for long-term care. Having the Zoo’s experienced animal handlers serving as on-call rescue dispatch is a crucial component.

    “We are thrilled to once again be part of this team effort to save these beautiful baby herons. The opportunity to take ‘Action for Wildlife,’ is important to us, around the world and right here in our city of Oakland,” said Amy Gotliffe, Conservation Director at Oakland Zoo.

    Young night-herons in care at Bird Rescue in 2015. Photo by Cheryl Reynolds.

    Once the birds are delivered to Bird Rescue, a world-leading wild waterbird rehabilitative care organization with two centers, the care provided will help them develop the full range of skills needed for survival, such as self-feeding and flight. Like last year, the rehabilitated birds will be released into safe and appropriate local habitat, including Oakland’s Bay shoreline.…

  • A field guide to my first field guide

    By Allen Fish

    Chandler Robbins died last month.  He would have been 100 years old this July 17th. Never as famous as Roger Tory Peterson or David Sibley, Chandler Robbins made some of the most important contributions to bird research and conservation in the 20th century.

    He conducted some of the earliest research on DDT, contributing to Rachel Carson’s crusade; he pioneered the U.S. Breeding Bird Survey, a system of point counts designed to capture data on bird population changes across the continent; and he banded what is believed to be the world’s oldest, still-living bird, an individual Laysan Albatross on Midway Island in 1956.  These are just a few stepping stones across the arc of Robbins’ amazing career.

    Chandler Robbins banding an albatross in 1966 / Photo by USFWS

    Robbins was also the author of the Golden Guide to North American Birds.  First published in 1966, just a few years on the heels of Peterson’s Western Guide, the Robbins Guide corrected a few of the Peterson mistakes.  Robbins put bird pictures, descriptions, and maps all on one open double-page.  No flipping to the back to see what the range was.  And for many passerines, there were sonograms right there as well. And everything in color.

    I got my Robbins Guide not long after, a Christmas present from a grandparent I think, as instructed by my parents with a shrug. “He likes birds.”  It was 1968.  I was seven years old. The political world was swirling in change but I didn’t know anything about that.  I liked birds.

    Fifty years later, I pull Robbins from my book case and put it next to my laptop.  It falls open flat into three separate pieces.  This is in spite of at least two patch jobs I did back in the 1970s.  One I did with black electrical tape from dad’s electrical fix-it box.  The other was with clear contact paper from mom’s craft drawer.  Fortunately today, the heavy vinyl-ish soft-cover is still mostly intact and so holds the sections a bit like an ancient manila folder.

    Allen Fish’s first field guide, with musical embellishment

    On the cover, with its three species of male buntings, faint in the upper left corner is my name in a rolling cursive pen typical of a fifth grader.  It’s likely the first book I wrote my name in. In a moment of pre-teen comic brilliance, after learning the basics of reading music (learned many times, never took), I made a talking balloon from the Lazuli Bunting’s open beak and put a quarter note in it. 

    …

  • Rigel Stuhmiller: From soccer bench to bird art

    By Ilana DeBare

    Rigel Stuhmiller’s vibrant bird prints have an unlikely genesis… the sidelines of a soccer field.

    Rigel, who will be the guest artist at our 2017 Birdathon Awards Celebration, spent a lot of time on the bench as a college soccer player at MIT. Bored, she started watching flocks moving over the open field.

    “Not a great era for my soccer development, but it was the first time I had spent much time thinking about birds and observing their behavior,” said Rigel, now 39 and a Berkeley resident.

    Rigel produces various kinds of prints – block prints, letterpress, and screen prints. Her products include wall art, note cards, tote bags, and tea towels. While her subjects range from fish and flowers to dinosaurs and cabbages, birds clearly occupy a central place in her artistic imagination.

    We first encountered Rigel’s work through her lovely, small desktop letterpress bird calendar. Her birds are simple and colorful, often perched on flowers of a contrasting color.

    Common Yellowthroats in a plumeria by Rigel Stuhmiller

    “I find birds happy, beautiful, and fascinating,” she said. “I love the little thrill of finding them, I feel relaxed watching them hop around and eat things and sing, I like watching them live their lives. I like learning their different personalities. I feel like there’s nothing bad about a bird, they’re just inherently cheerful and interesting creatures.”

    Growing up in San Diego, Rigel didn’t set out to be an artist. But ultimately she realized that art was the only work that made her happy. She first started sketching birds around the time of those college soccer games, but it was a bumpy start.

    “I didn’t know anything about bird anatomy so maybe I should call them ‘birds,’ ” she said. “It took me a long time to understand their different anatomy. I tend to make them too human, because I have a lot more experience drawing people.”

    Indigo Buntings in dogwood by Rigel Stuhmiller

    Her understanding of birds took a big leap when she met her husband, a wetlands restoration ecologist.

    “He was the first person I had met who walked around with binoculars on hikes,” she said. “He was always very interested in looking at hawks, which at first I found strange because hawks were so commonplace in San Diego that I never had given them much thought. They had been just shapes that sat on top of telephone poles.…

  • Remembering Lee Karney

    Lee Karney, a longtime Golden Gate Bird Alliance volunteer, passed away on January 3, 2017 at the age of 84. Lee was a regular participant in our monthly habitat restoration sessions at Pier 94 in San Francisco, and documented those sessions with photographs. You have undoubtedly seen his vivid photos on our web site and in many issues of our newsletters! The following remarks were delivered by GGBA Volunteer Coordinator Noreen Weeden at Lee’s memorial service last weekend. 

    Initially I met Lee through Golden Gate Bird Alliance, where he was a member of the San Francisco Conservation Committee. As an architect for 45 years in the Bay Area, he put his knowledge and background to work in several local projects including the India Basin development comments. He submitted letters and met with our district supervisor in support of the Standards for Bird Safe Buildings ordinance, which was passed in San Francisco in 2011.

    Lee Karney taking photos at the 2012 SF CBC dinner / Photo by Ilana DeBare

    Lee became an avid wildlife photographer in his retirement, and offered to contribute his photography skills to Golden Gate Bird Alliance. He submitted beautiful bird photographs that he had taken locally for articles in our newsletter. Over a 10-year period, his impressive photos of birds were seen by thousands of people. His photographs of people enjoying volunteering or attending events inspired others to volunteer or participate. He photographed at Harding Park, Golden Gate Park, McLaren Park, Ocean Beach, Crissy Field and most frequently at Pier 94. He also photographed outside at our Volunteer Appreciation picnics, Birdathon fundraising events and Christmas Bird Counts, as well as the indoor CBC celebration dinners.

    Photo by Lee Karney Photo by Lee Karney

    Bird photographs taken by Lee were published in the 100 Birds of Heron’s Head field guide, which was provided free to beginning birders and school kids in San Francisco.

    Lee was able to talk with people of all ages and backgrounds, from Cub Scouts to Girl Scouts and Eagle Scouts, from at-risk high school students to U.C. Berkeley students, people from the neighborhood, interns, and millennials from corporate groups participating in community service. He was able to make people feel at ease. Lee got people to smile since his own smile was sincere.

    Lee generously provided transportation to volunteers that needed a lift and he also encouraged people to get together after planting or weeding at habitat restoration events.…