By Cindy Margulis

In a major victory for Altamont Pass birds, a wind company that has killed outrageous numbers of birds in the Altamont area announced that it is shutting down its 828-turbine wind farm, effective November 1.

Golden Gate Bird Alliance – together with other Audubon chapters and the S.F. Bay Sierra Club chapter  — mounted a major campaign last spring to stop Altamont Winds Inc. (AWI) from operating because of its notorious track record. AWI killed at least 67 Golden Eagles, 80 American Kestrels, 57 Burrowing Owls, and 172 Red-tailed Hawks in a recent 10-year period.

Unashamed of the scale of the mortality it had caused, AWI pled with Alameda County to renew its operating permit for another three years. To our chagrin, we did not prevail: we lost by a heart-breaking 3:2 vote of the Board of Supervisors.

But that setback has now given way to a very significant victory.

“The reduction of avian impacts was a primary factor that influenced our decision to discontinue operating our Altamont wind farms,” AWI wrote in an email to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

Golden Eagle, one of the species that has suffered the most severe losses at Altamont. Photo by Davor Desancic

More than a decade of advocacy

The roots of this welcome news about AWI go back more than a decade.

In 2004, Golden Gate Bird Alliance and other Bay Area Audubon chapters filed a lawsuit demanding that Alameda County stop allowing wind energy facilities to destroy the public’s wildlife resources. GGBA supports wind power, but believes wind farms must be built and managed in a way that doesn’t decimate bird populations.

Both Alameda County and the three other wind companies operating in the Alameda portion of Altamont Pass ultimately agreed to a settlement with us. That pivotal Settlement Agreement would spur wind firms to phase out operations of their old-fashioned turbines. Instead, they’d install fewer, more modern turbines capable of producing energy far more efficiently with much less impact on birds – a process called repowering.

As part of that Settlement Agreement, the County and operators agreed to reduce mortality at their wind farms by at least 50 percent (according to an independent monitoring regime) and develop substantive habitat conservation plans in order to help bird populations recover.

But AWI backed out of the settlement negotiations at the last minute. The company continually delayed on repowering. Instead, AWI sought multiple permit extensions over a period of years to continue operating its entire fleet of old, deadly turbines while its competitors began decommissioning theirs.…

By Bob Lewis
This small field guide, published by R.W. Morse Co. of Olympia, Washington, slides easily into a back pocket. Small in size, but somehow able to cram 502 pages full of details on over 400 Northern California bird species, this photographic guide bucks the “bigger is better” trend of many popular guides.
The authors of Birds of Northern California are well known to many Bay Area birders. Dave Quady, the principal author, is known as the Grey Owl to many of us: Famous for teaching owling classes and leading field trips for Golden Gate Bird Alliance, Dave is President of Western Field Ornithologists. Jon Dunn’s name appears as principal author of the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, and many of us have traveled with Jon to far-away places as he guides Wings field trips. His publication list is long, and his knowledge of local and world birds legendary. Kimball Garrett, as Ornithology Collections manager of the Natural History Museum of L.A. County, brings extensive knowledge of the status and distribution of California’s birds, and Brian Small’s photographs have appeared regularly on the covers of every bird publication there is. He’s co-author of three other photographic field guides.
Birds of Northern California
This is a photographic guide. The pages are small, and often only a single species appears on a page. This contrasts to larger guides using artwork, where several species can be compared on a single page. Graphic Designer Christina Merwin has, however, done a good job of placing similar species on the same page where possible. Examples are Hooded and Bullock’s Orioles; Bell’s and Sagebrush Sparrows; Dusky and Gray Flycatchers; Peregrine and Prairie Falcon.
Red-shouldered Hawk photo page from Birds of Northern California
Red-shouldered Hawk text page, next to the photo page
The photographs are sharp and generally posed in a slight angle toward the reader, ideal for showing off as many field marks as possible. Many species are illustrated in several plumages: male and female, basic and alternate. immature and adult. 468 of the 650 bird images are by Brian Small; some of the remainder are by Northern California photographers known to readers of The Gull, including Jerry Ting and Glen Tepke. (Editor’s note: Bob Lewis has a photo in the guide too!) There are two maps by our own Rusty Scalf, showing public lands and habitats in Northern California.
Habitat map by Rusty Scalf in Birds of Northern California
The book is organized taxonomically, covering the most common species found in the area.…

Note: This is the eighth in a series of occasional blog posts by GGBA member George Peyton about his other half Lani Rumbaoa’s effort to see over 600 bird species in the Lower 48 states in 2015.
By George Peyton
Southeast Arizona (SEAZ) is justly famous for harboring a number of Mexican bird species that barely cross the border into that region and are often found nowhere else in the United States. This was to be the last place this year where Lani could add a significant number of new species to her Big Year List. When we started on July 27, Lani’s List was up to 535 for 2015, and I estimated that if she were very lucky, she could add 35 to 40 new species.
We were fortunate that our close birding friend Bob Hirt (Birder Bob) — who had done an exceptional job as Lani’s unofficial guide on the Texas Coast during April — agreed once more to act in that capacity in Southeast Arizona. Bob spent a huge amount of time before the trip researching where to see the maximum number of species in SEAZ, so that each day we had a detailed itinerary with at least four or five different birding stops, each aimed at finding one or two specific Target Species.
Our trip to Southeast Arizona was specifically timed to coincide with the summer monsoon rains that bring a “second spring,” i.e., a second breeding season for many species of birds. The lush green landscape and cooler temperatures brought about by near-daily rains over two to three weeks are in stark contrast to the extremely hot, dry summer climate with temperatures up to 110 degrees in much of the rest of Arizona during that period.
Most people in California have never heard of the SEAZ monsoon rains in late July and early August, but it is often the best time to see the Mexican bird specialties, particularly hummingbirds such as Violet-crowned, White-eared, and Lucifer, as well as Plain-capped Starthroat.
Juvenile Gray Hawk by Laurens Halsey
Lani Rumbaoa with guides Bob Hirt (left) and Laurens Halsey (right) / Photo by George Peyton
We flew into Phoenix and directed our rented Jeep Cherokee right away to Encanto Park Golf Course, the only place in the U.S. where Rosy-faced Lovebirds can be found. Lani’s sharp eyes picked out a pair within one minute of our arrival, about 100 feet away under a tree.…

By Ilana DeBare
Golden Gate Bird Alliance has joined the growing chorus of park users and neighbors urging shutdown of the controversial Chabot Gun Club and shooting range.
In a letter to the East Bay Regional Park District this week, GGBA urged non-renewal of the gun club’s lease because of its danger to wildlife, its disturbance of neighbors and park users, and the very high costs of bringing it into compliance with environmental laws.
“The serious negative environmental consequences, plus the daunting costs associated with extending operation of the Club on District land, significantly outweigh any possible benefit of extending the Club’s lease,” GGBA Executive Director Cindy Margulis wrote in the letter.
Chabot Gun Club / Photo by gritphilm (Creative Commons)
Since 1964, the gun club has operated a shooting range with toxic lead ammunition in the watershed of Lake Chabot in Anthony Chabot Regional Park, in the hills between Oakland and Castro Valley.
The East Bay Regional Parks board is scheduled to discuss renewing its lease on November 3rd.
GGBA opposes renewal of the lease for several reasons:

• Lead contamination. Toxic lead levels in the streams flowing from the gun club to Lake Chabot have been found to be more than 14 and 20 times greater than EPA benchmark levels. Lead is fatal if ingested by wildlife – including the 145 species of birds found in Chabot Park. Raptors and vultures are poisoned by eating lead-tainted prey, while other species may be exposed by drinking or bathing in lead-contaminated puddles and water sources. Even Lake Chabot’s nesting Bald Eagles are at risk from lead contamination.

Male Bald Eagle at Lake Chabot / Photo by Mary Malec
Chabot Gun Club / Photo by gritphilm (Creative Commons)

• Noise pollution. Neighbors have complained for years about excessive and disruptive noise from the shooting range. In addition, the sound of gunshots is disturbing to hikers and other park users who come to the park for serenity and peace of mind. Gunfire is all too common and frightening in many Bay Area urban communities; our parks are meant as refuges from that kind of stress.

• Noise impacts on wildlife. Loud noise such as gunshots can harm wildlife as well as humans. At the very least, birds are deterred from using otherwise viable habitat by gunfire. In addition, researchers have documented stress in birds that are flushed by gunfire. Other studies show that birds’ hearing can be permanently damaged by the sound of gunfire.

…

Editor’s note: On October 6th, Mark Rauzon reported on the SF Birds Yahoo group that he had sighted a Nashville Warbler in downtown San Francisco. But members who viewed his photo pointed out that it was in fact a much more rare Mourning Warbler. Here is Mark’s account of the sighting and what it ended up meaning to him.
By Mark Rauzon
I am sorry I misidentified the San Francisco Mourning Warbler when I found it on Tuesday October 6th. Sorry because a rara avis almost got away and some would miss a lifer and some would be denied a unique county tick. But in hindsight it was the denial of a precognition of death.
I was rushed that day as I had a meeting in Oakland City Hall with our councilmember to try to save the endangered Pallid Manzanita. Since I was at BART and had a few hours before teaching my next class, I jumped on a train and was quickly deposited on the other side of the Bay in the financial district. Two blocks later, I was in Ferry Park. This is a difficult place to bird psychically as homeless addicts, business professionals, and grounds maintenance crews all are in their places. Camera toting, bino laden, I took my place among them. I scanned the towering poplars with the usual sense of how hopeless it is to find a small bird here. But guided by faint chip notes, nearly drowned out by roaring trucks, buses, leaf blowers, sirens, and Ferry Building tower chimes, I saw a Yellow Warbler, a Yellow-rumped Warbler, and a Warbling Vireo, and considered the trip a success. Then I followed a hummingbird into the forest and atop the hill.
I immediately saw something run like a rat into the ground cover. I waited and watched a trembling leaf, then got a glimpse of a yellow bird with a complete eye ring, confirming it wasn’t a MacGillivray’s Warbler. I was sure to see it hopped, not walked, so I eliminated Connecticut Warbler. Because of my lack of familiarity with Mourning Warbler, I was conservative but my heart was pounding as I knew this was something special.
Mark’s mystery warbler in San Francisco / Photo by Mark Rauzon
MacGillivray’s Warbler in New Mexico / Photo by Sara Beckwith, NPS
I dug into my backpack for my camera to document this but the battery was dead. I took a cell phone shot, cursed, took another shot through my binos, cursed, and looked closely at the bird as it disappeared into the agapanthus hugging the hilltop.…