By Mary Malec
This is a story where everyone does everything right… almost.
Six or seven years ago I was driving up my street returning home from work and looked up to see a male Red-tailed Hawk flying toward me, rodent in its talon. I pulled over in time to watch it rise up into a grove of eucalyptus and land on the rim of a nest. The female on the nest stood up stiffly, roused, took the rodent, and flew off to a nearby tree. The male looked down into the nest then snuggled down with a tell-tale egg wiggle.
That nest has been successful most years since, fledging one to three young each year. The nest tree is in a pocket park in Oakland on the Emeryville border. Emeryville maintains the park.
Three years ago, a friend sent me a link to a notice on the Facebook page of Raptors are the Solution asking for help from anyone who could attend an Emeryville City Council meeting. The City was scheduled to approve cutting all the trees in the pocket park to make room for a playground directly under the tree where the hawk nested. A biologist had surveyed the area and found no environmental reason not to cut the trees. Somehow he or she had missed the large nest and the limbs covered with hawk droppings.
Two redtail nestlings and mother in nest in 2011 / Photo by Mary Malec
A fledgling in 2012 / Photo by Mary Malec
I spent an hour that afternoon selecting and printing and labeling photos I’d taken over the previous several years of the nest, the adults, and each of the nestlings. I put them into a packet and went to the city council meeting. There I was joined by many neighbors of the park, some there to plead for the redtails’ nest tree and others to ask for other changes in the park plans. Some were there to ask that all the eucalyptus be cut to prevent future limb fall, especially in the area where the playground was to be located.
The City Council listened to the public, looked at my photos, and changed their plans.
The trees were severely trimmed and some were stabilized mechanically. Other trees were added to the park so that even if the eucalyptus are cut, there will eventually be mature trees to provide a home for wildlife and a buffer between the park and neighboring houses.…

By Ivan Samuels
When I realized that spring was upon us and Golden Gate Bird Alliance’s Birdathon season was fast approaching, a smoke signal was sent to fellow Miwok birders Peter Pyle and Brian Turner seeking consensus on the date for our big day. Okay, I admit that in fact I emailed them, but email would not be allowed on April 20, when for the fifth year in a row, we took the Miwok-style Birdathon challenge.
The rules and the route would be the same: no optics, car, bike, phone, watch, flashlight, etc. Relying on our collective birding experience and the help of a robust spring chorus, we would bird West Marin by foot, and by kayak in Bolinas Lagoon. With this unique challenge we would explore the diversity of habitats present within a small geographical area to ask the question: How many species might the Miwok Indians detect in a single day without using any modern aids?
Birds and mudflats of Bolinas Lagoon / Photo by Ilana DeBare
April 20, while a bit later than past years, was chosen mostly due to tides. A high tide around midday is critical for the kayak component of our count. We realized one result of this choice at dawn, when besides the haunting cries of Spotted Owls we immediately added Swainson’s Thrush to the list, a first. It seems that in past years, we were just a few days too early for this beautiful songster.
From there, the list grew rapidly and predictably; we have started to learn the best spots for site-faithful species that are on territory each year in the same places. Less predictable highlights also delighted the team – a Merlin persistently harassing a Crow (yes, usually the other way around), a skulking Lincoln’s Sparrow at the sewage ponds, White-throated Sparrow near Pine Gulch, flyover Pileated Woodpecker, and even a Rufous Hummingbird.
Lincoln’s Sparrow / Photo by Bob Lewis
Ivan Samuels — NOT taken during the Miwork Birdathon, since Miwoks didn’t have cameras!
How well we timed the tide in Bolinas Lagoon is debatable as we spent considerable time walking our kayaks through mud. And while the ducks had largely departed, this part of the day added many water birds to our list.
Perched on the bluffs above Agate Beach, we stared and strained our eyes at Duxbury Reef and beyond. A gray sky all day, it was also dead calm and the lack of wind made for an extraordinarily peaceful moment.…

By Maureen Lahiff
Have you ever seen an albatross? Do you want to have the pleasure of spotting their distinctive profile, tilting and soaring above the wave crests, flying without flapping? Articles about the physics of albatross flight are still being published in the 21st century, but you don’t have to master the physics to appreciate the poetry. Do you want to see shearwaters perform their graceful ballet?
Then you must go sea-birding.
There’s a great variety of birds that spend most of their lives on the open ocean, some never venturing further in than the continental shelf.
We’re fortunate in the Bay Area to have access to good day-long pelagic birding trips. (Pelagic comes from the Greek word for sea, pelagos.) I usually do one or two a year, with August to October being the months I consider most rewarding for a beginning sea birder.
My recommendation for a first trip is to go out from Monterey Bay. Because of the submarine canyon that extends out from Moss Landing, there is deep, cold water relatively close to shore. The cold water upwellings bring food that attracts pelagic birds, dolphins and whales. At its deepest, the canyon bottom is almost 12,000 feet below the water’s surface. You’ll see wildlife off and on all throughout the trip. There are also great trips out of Half Moon Bay. I was thrilled, and privileged, to see a pair of Marbled Murrelets swimming in the ocean on a trip that went south along the coast from Half Moon Bay to look for them.
Laysan Albatross by Glen Tepke
Black-footed Albatross by Glen Tepke
Red-necked Phalarope by Glen Tepke
If the weather and wind cooperate, pelagic trips go out past the continental shelf, to where the albatross live and Red and Red-necked Phalaropes, shearwaters, and the elusive petrels and storm-petrels spend the winter or migrate through.

The Farallon Islands

The Farallon Islands are a destination for many pelagic birding trips, and for Oceanic Society whale-watching trips in the summer and fall. I think that anyone who loves the Bay Area and its natural history should not only learn about but also see the Farallones.
Late July and early August are prime times for viewing birds, as the young of burrow-nesting birds such as Tufted Puffins will be fledging and the adults will still have colorful plumage before they molt. Many of the birds that nest on the Farallones are colonial nesters, since they don’t have to defend a territory to protect their food sources.…

By Ilana DeBare
The rocky oceanfront near San Francisco’s Sutro Baths is a key nesting spot for shorebirds such as Black Oystercatchers and Brandt’s Cormorants. So longtime birder Alan Hopkins was dismayed last January when he started seeing recreational drones buzzing along that section of shore.
Sam Schuchat had been excited to see a pair of Western Gulls nesting on a ledge across from his office at the California Coastal Conservancy in downtown Oakland in June. Then a drone swooped by and frightened the parent gulls off their nest.
Drones and birds: At this point such unplanned encounters are still an anomaly. But as the commercial and recreational use of drones grows, so will the potential for them to disrupt and endanger wildlife.
Drones — pilotless aircraft that often resemble mini-helicopters — are spreading. The Federal Aviation Authority is finalizing rules this year that will allow the widespread use of commercial, non-military drones. As many as 10,000 to 30,000 commercial drones could be in the air by 2020, used for everything from scientific research and police surveillance to bridge repairs and package delivery. Many of the companies making drones are based in the Bay Area, tapping the engineering know-how and financing of Silicon Valley.
While it’s good that the FAA is developing rules to govern drone use, the proposed rules do not address the potential impacts on wildlife.
And the FAA’s oversight does not include recreational drones used by hobbyists – probably the kind sighted by Hopkins and Schuchat.
In most cases, a single scare from a passing drone isn’t likely to harm a bird. In the incident with the Oakland gull nest, the parent birds returned to the nest after the drone passed and successfully hatched some chicks.
Western Gull and chicks at Oakland nest site that was disturbed by a drone / Photo by Sam Schuchat
But repetition raises the stakes.
Parent birds may abandon a nest if they’re disturbed repeatedly. Even one disturbance can leave their chicks temporarily vulnerable to predators. And flushing birds while they’re roosting or feeding makes it harder for them to build up the energy reserves for successful breeding and migration.
Many bird species today are already under severe pressure from loss of habitat and climate change. They will find it even harder to survive these challenges if their rest and feeding is constantly being interrupted by drones.
Drone sighted by Alan Hopkins over Sutro Baths / Photo by Alan Hopkins
Drone near Sutro Baths in January 2015 / Photo by Alan Hopkins
Black Oystercatcher, a species that relies on rocky waterfront like the area around Sutro Baths for nesting / Photo by Rick Lewis
No major conservation group has so far launched a campaign about drones.…