By Jess Beebe
Most people think of Point Isabel primarily as a dog park, and indeed it features one of the largest and most scenic off-leash dog areas anywhere. But this park is also the gateway to a premier birding destination, offering access to a delightful stretch of the San Francisco Bay Trail that meanders through a restored salt marsh and slough and past expansive mudflats.
Tires, shopping carts, and chunks of concrete remind us that this place – like many shoreline parks – has a checkered history of human use. (It was acquired by the East Bay Regional Park District in 1975 to offset the construction of the neighboring Postal Service facility.) Here, as elsewhere, the Bay Trail runs parallel to a busy freeway. Yet the place has a wild beauty that transcends the heavy impact by people, both past and present, and makes it a worthwhile destination even for nature lovers who generally prefer more pristine places.
The mudflats and salt marsh provide outstanding habitat for shorebirds year-round and ducks in winter. Upland habitat hosts warblers and other songbirds. But without a doubt, the star resident is the Ridgway’s Rail. This species was known as the Clapper Rail until 2014, when the West Coast population was declared distinct from Gulf and Atlantic populations and given its own name. The interpretive displays along the Bay Trail still refer to the birds as Clapper Rails. Whatever you call this species, it is classified as endangered, both federally and in California, mainly due to habitat loss.
Tidal channel west of the Bay Trail near Point Isabel / Photo by Jess Beebe
Ridgway’s Rail (formerly California Clapper Rail / Photo by Bob Lewis
Rails are known for their secretive habits. They spend much of their time hidden deep in the salt marsh, venturing out onto the muddy banks of the channels only occasionally, and often for just moments at a time, before disappearing back into the marsh.
I saw my first Ridgway’s Rail on a trip to the Upper Coast of Texas. A fellow birder had told me that they could reliably be seen alongside a certain road on the Bolivar Peninsula. Determined to finally lay eyes on one of these elusive birds, I brought a sandwich and staked out the muddy marsh edge. About two hours later, a rail appeared. Having seen that rail – if only briefly – I felt more confident searching for them at Point Isabel, and later that season I spotted one there, too.…

Editor’s Note: Some people go birding to escape from the stresses of daily life. For birders of color, those stresses often continue into the field. This timely and compelling essay is excerpted with permission from J. Drew Lanham’s new book, THE HOME PLACE: MEMOIRS OF A COLORED MAN’S LOVE AFFAIR WITH NATURE.
By J. Drew Lanham
It’s only 9:06 a.m. and I think I might get hanged today.

* * * *

The job I volunteered for was to record every bird I could see or hear in a three-minute interval. I am supposed to do that fifty times. Look, listen, and list for three minutes. Get in the car. Drive a half mile. Stop. Get out. Look, listen, and list again. It’s a routine thousands of volunteers have followed during springs and summers all across North America since 1966. The data is critical for ornithologists to understand how breeding birds are faring across the continent.
Up until now the going has been fun and easy, more leisurely than almost any “work” anyone could imagine. But here I am, on stop number thirty-two of the Laurel Falls (Tennessee) Breeding Bird Survey route: a large black man in one of the whitest places in the state, sitting on the side of the road with binoculars pointed toward a house with the Confederate flag proudly displayed. Rumbling trucks passing by, a honking horn or two, and curious double takes are infrequent but still distract me from the task at hand. Maybe there’s some special posthumous award given for dying in the line of duty on a Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) route—perhaps a roadside plaque honoring my bird-censusing skills.
The Home Place, J. Drew Lanham’s new book
My mind plays horrific scenes of an old black-and-white photograph I’ve seen before—gleeful throngs at a lynching party. Pale faces glow grimly in evil light. A little girl smiles broadly. The pendulant, black-skinned guest of dishonor swings anonymously, grotesquely, lifelessly. I can hear Billie Holiday’s voice.
The mountain morning, which started out cool, is rapidly heating into the June swoon. I grip the clipboard tighter with sweaty hands, ignoring as best I can the stars and bars flapping menacingly in the yard across the road. The next three minutes will seem much longer.
On mornings like this I sometimes question why I choose to do such things. Was I crazy to take this route, up here, so far away from anything?…

By David Assmann
Crissy Field Lagoon at dawn on a sunny day is the epitome of tranquility – herons and egrets feeding in a pristine lagoon with the Golden Gate Bridge perched majestically in the background. Seeing this birding jewel today, it can be hard to visualize its many previous incarnations, which included time as a military installation, a livestock display area, and a hazardous waste dump.
Prior to the arrival of Spanish settlers in 1776, what is now Crissy Field and Lagoon in San Francisco was a 130-acre salt marsh and estuary. The Ohlone lived in seasonal camps in the area, harvesting shellfish and fish from the marsh. Bird life was abundant. The Spanish, led by Captain Juan Bautista de Anza, established a military post to defend Spain’s claim to San Francisco Bay and called it El Presidio Real de San Francisco (“the royal garrison of Saint Francis”). They removed native vegetation, planted crops, and grazed livestock.
The Presidio in 1817 by Louis Choris
When the U.S. Army arrived in 1846, it maintained the Presidio as a military installation, complete with refuse dumps. The tidal sloughs were filled in 1912 so that the area could be used as a Grand Prix racetrack in advance of the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition. During the exhibition, the site of the lagoon was used for livestock exhibits for the fair. In 1921, an airfield was built on Crissy Field.
Over time, the Presidio gradually lost its utility as a military base. The airfield was closed in 1974, and in 1989 Congress voted to close the entire base. The Presidio was formally transferred to the National Park Service in 1994, and shortly thereafter the transformation back to a more natural state began.
Planes lined up at Crissy Field in the 1920s / Wikipedia
Crissy Lagoon today / Photo by David Assmann
Converting a former military installation to a pristine park involved raising millions of dollars, removing thousands of tons of debris, and planting more than 100,000 native plants. Golden Gate Bird Alliance played a role in the restoration as one of the key environmental groups consulted in developing the environmental assessment for the restoration.
Today the 18-acre Crissy Field Lagoon provides a rich habitat for shorebirds, wading birds, and ducks. It has its own seasonal rhythm, as regular as the tidal flows, but on a different time scale. The summer is the slow season on the lagoon, but there are still plenty of birds.…

Editor’s Note: Autumn brings the return of many beloved Bay Area birds like White-crowned Sparrows. Where have they been all summer? This article by an Audubon Alaska staffer provides a vivid glimpse not just of where they go, but of the native people who welcome them there… and why we need to protect their summer home.
By Susan Culliney 
As the Policy Associate for Audubon Alaska, I recently spent five days in remote Arctic Village at the biannual Gwich’in Gathering. The Gwich’in are a First Nation of aboriginal people from the Yukon River flats of northwestern Alaska and Canada’s Yukon and Northwest territories. They gather every other year to maintain ties with family and friends, to keep their traditional food, dance, and language alive and thriving, and to tend to the governance and resolutions of their Native nation.
In 1988, the Gwich’in Nation resolved to stand strong against drilling in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The coastal plain is the calving grounds for the Porcupine Caribou herd, which the Gwich’in rely on for their food security and cultural identity. Drilling activities in the coastal plain would interrupt caribou migration patterns, as well as impact denning polar bears and thousands of migratory birds. I attended this year’s gathering initially to represent Audubon’s support in this important campaign, but I also came away with an enriched understanding of the ties that bind these people so intimately to their birds, wildlife, and landscape.
2016 Gwich’in Gathering in Arctic Village, Alaska / Photo by Susan Culliney
Boats docked at Arctic Village, on the edge of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge / Photo by Susan Culliney
Arctic Village, called Vashraii Koo by the people who live there, is nestled in the embrace of the foothills of the Brooks Range. The village is hugged on three sides by the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which spreads to the north, west, and east in huge swaths of wilderness, dramatic terrain, and lakes and streams dotted with waterbirds. A few houses and buildings congregate here on high ground, surrounded by the tundra and the East Fork of the Chandalar River. Is the land empty or is it full? It depends on how you value the resounding silence, the unapologetic open space, and the timeless wildlife dramas that play out against a backdrop of unrestrained freedom.
Though the land appears motionless, caribou move in giant patterns across the tundra.…

By Richard Bangert
Location, location, location! But for a fenced-off dilapidated navigation light stand on a jetty at the Seaplane Lagoon, Ospreys would not have had a successful nesting season at Alameda Point in 2016.
In late August, two adult Ospreys took flight from their Seaplane Lagoon perch for parts unknown with two healthy offspring. It was a welcome sight because for the past three years a series of frustrating avian soap operas featuring other Ospreys and unwanted nesting attempts aboard the maritime ship Admiral Callaghan were marked with failure. Previously in 2012 they had raised one chick, the only other recorded case of Osprey reproduction at Alameda Point.
Osprey pair with two chicks on June 8, 2016 by Richard Bangert
The Ospreys briefly attempted to nest this year on a parking lot light pole on the wharf near the USS Hornet. But a pair of ravens repeatedly harassed the Ospreys, even stealing nesting material and tossing some of it on the ground. The Ospreys finally found peace back on their original nest from years ago that still straddles the top of the light stand at the entrance to the Seaplane Lagoon. The navigation light stand, erected in 1940, is at the tip of the rock wall jetty on the west side of the lagoon.
This year’s nesting effort was aided by the installation of a fence across the foot of the jetty where the nest sits to keep curious individuals from wandering out near the nest and causing the birds to leave the nest. The fence was erected by the city at the urging of local osprey watchers.
Two-month-old Osprey lands on fence that keeps people from approaching the nest site.
“Frequent disturbances can cause anxiety in wildlife that interrupts normal behavior,” said Leora Feeney, a longtime advocate for Alameda wildlife with Golden Gate Bird Alliance. “Having birds leave the nest, even for a few moments, provides an opportunity for gulls, ravens, herons, or others to prey on eggs or chicks.”
More help is needed in order to maintain this unusual raptor nest site. Three of the iron legs on the light stand are rusted through and won’t hold up the bulky Osprey nest much longer. Years ago its mate on the other side of the lagoon entrance toppled over and is hanging by a chain at water’s edge.

Legs of the navigation light stand are rusted through. Light was erected in 1940.