By Richard Bangert
Alameda’s nesting colony of endangered California Least Terns has a new government landlord – and a secure home for the future.
After years of negotiations, the U.S. Navy transferred 624 acres of its former airfield at Alameda Point to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on Monday, November 3.
The transfer includes the former airstrip that was adopted by Least Terns for nesting in the 1970s and that has become the most productive breeding site in California for that species. More than 500 acres – including the area used by the terns – will be preserved as a wildlife reserve.
Golden Gate Bird Alliance and its Friends of the Alameda Wildlife Reserve committee have advocated for decades to protect the terns, whose total population as a species stood at only about 600 pairs in the mid-1970s.
GGBA Executive Director Cindy Margulis congratulated the VA on the transfer and said she looked forward to working together on wildlife protection.
“Locating this state-of-the-art care facility next to this vital permanent wildlife sanctuary containing endangered species calls for all of us to be creative, resourceful, and cooperative,” Margulis said. “This site evokes the spirit of America the Beautiful and should be a very special place for those who serve our country and also steward its natural resources.”
Navy Property Caretaker Doug Delong; US FWS site manager Susan Euing; Leora Feeney from GGBA/Friends of the Alameda Wildlife Reserve; and VA project manager Larry Janes in the Alameda Theater lobby following the Alameda Point transfer ceremony on November 3. / Photo by Richard Bangert
GGBA volunteers clean and prepare the tarmac nesting site for the terns’ arrival in 2009
Tern feeding chick next to shelter / Photo by Richard Bangert
The VA plans to construct an outpatient clinic that includes ambulatory surgical care, an office to assist veterans in obtaining benefits, and a national cemetery. The design phase of the $208 million project is expected to be completed in the spring of 2015, with subsequent phases dependent upon Congressional budget authorizations.
Kimberly Ostrowski, the Navy’s keynote speaker at the transfer ceremony, noted that the project faced significant hurdles over the past decade — one of which was the proximity of the VA facilities to the terns’ nesting site. That ultimately led to moving the clinic further away from the nesting area. Master of Ceremonies Dr. Ronald Chun, manager of the Oakland VA clinic, acknowledged the terns’ partnership in the VA’s future by bringing a model of a Least Tern to the podium.…

By Bruce Mast

They are the clowns of the oak savannah — Acorn Woodpeckers — with their harlequin faces, gregarious habits, and off-kilter laughing calls that inspired Woody Woodpecker. According to Birds of North America, the “Acorn Woodpecker is a common, conspicuous inhabitant of foothill and montane woodlands from northwestern Oregon, California, the American Southwest, and western Mexico through the highlands of Central America to the northern Andes in Colombia. Throughout its range, this species is closely associated with oaks (genus Quercus) and is most commonly found in pine-oak woodlands.”

Here in the Bay Area, Acorn Woodpecker colonies are fairly common in the East Bay hills and the western slopes of Mount Diablo, particularly where there are concentrations of valley oaks. South of Livermore, they can be locally abundant in the Diablo range. They are rare in Tilden and Redwood Regional Parks and practically unheard of west of the Hayward Fault.

So what’s up with the recent spate of Acorn Woodpecker sightings in urban San Francisco and the East Bay lowlands?

Acorn Woodpecker at Sycamore Valley Open Space Preserve (Danville) / Photo by Larry and Dena Hollowood, www.flickr.com/photos/larry_dena/ Acorn Woodpecker carrying an acorn / Photo by Larry and Dena Hollowood, www.flickr.com/photos/larry_dena/

Beginning around September 1st, Acorn Woodpecker reports started rolling in from multiple East Bay sites from Oakland to Richmond. The irruption hit San Francisco by September 12 when twelve birds were noted flying over Battery Godfrey. S.F. birders started finding bands of Acorns in Buena Vista Park, Lincoln Park, and Golden Gate Park, and solo flyover birds were all over town.

This irruption is particularly noteworthy because Acorn Woodpeckers are not migratory. What’s driving it? The most likely answer is acorn crop failure.

True to their name, Acorn Woodpeckers are acorn specialists. They develop communal granaries that may consist of tens of thousands of holes drilled in tree trunks and limbs, each stuffed with an acorn. Only about half their diet actually consists of acorns — the other half is made up of fruit, insects, and other vegetable matte r— but the acorn granaries are the staple food source that gets them through lean times. Again quoting BN:

[i]n areas where there are large seasonal fluctuations in insects and other foods, year-round residency is dependent on the birds’ ability to store sufficient acorn mast to provide food throughout the winter. Groups that exhaust their stores often abandon their territories and wander off in search of alternative food.

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By Ilana DeBare

Remember the line from Field of Dreams: Build it and they will come? 

The East Bay Regional Park District built protective fencing this fall on Crown Beach in Alameda.

And the Western Snowy Plovers came!

We posted earlier this month about how Golden Gate Bird Alliance volunteers helped win protective signage and fencing for these small, threatened shorebirds at Crown Beach. Shortly after the fencing was installed, the first plovers of the season arrived and started roosting in and near the protected area.

Not only that, the initial group of about a half-dozen plovers includes one young bird that is only four months old!

Birder Bob Sikora managed to capture photos of some of the Alameda plovers on Wednesday, including one bird with colored leg bands. It turned out to have been banded this past summer by San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory at Ravenswood Slough in Palo Alto, shortly after its birth on June 21st.

Last winter, GGBA volunteers spotted a banded adult plover at Alameda that also came from Ravenswood.

“It’s possible they could be from the same family — that this young bird’s father led it over to Alameda,” said GGBA Executive Director Cindy Margulis. “The arrival of this bird shows that a new generation has come to the beach. Now that the plovers have a protected wintering area here, they will have an easier time maturing and getting used to life in the wild.”

Four-month-old Western Snowy Plover with leg bands at Alameda’s Crown Beach / Photo by Bob Sikora, bobsikora.smugmug.com Western Snowy Plover at Alameda’s Crown Beach / Photo by Bob Sikora, bobsikora.smugmug.com

The protected area on Crown Beach — only about two blocks long — is a small but important step in ensuring the survival of Western Snowy Plovers. Due to decades of urban development along western beaches and sand dunes, there are only about 2,000 of these birds left on the West Coast.

Western Snowy Plovers were listed by the federal government as a threatened species in 1993. Beaches like Alameda provide winter roosting sites, where the birds feed and rest in preparation for summer breeding.

But on busy urban beaches — where they are constantly flushed from the warm sand by joggers, dogs, and other passersby — it can be difficult for plovers to get the rest they need. Thus the importance of providing fenced-off protected areas like the one in Alameda!…

By Ilana DeBare

Alameda’s winter population of threatened Western Snowy Plovers will be a lot safer this year — thanks to new protective fencing installed after monitoring and advocacy by Golden Gate Bird Alliance members.

The East Bay Regional Park District added the protective fencing and signage this month at Crown Memorial State Beach in Alameda, where up to 14 of the small shorebirds were sighted last winter.

Due to decades of urban development along western beaches and sand dunes, there are only about 2,000 Western Snowy Plovers left on the West Coast. They were listed by the federal government as a threatened species in 1993.

The plovers rely on Crown Beach for winter roosting, as they forage for small invertebrates along the water and rest in the warm dry sand above the tideline. Winter is critical for them to build up the energy and resources for spring and summer breeding. The birds use camouflage for protection so they don’t have to expend metabolic energy by constantly flushing.

But on busy Crown Beach, people often don’t see them until they nearly step on them — sometimes flushing an entire flock.

Well-camouflaged Western Snowy Plovers in Alameda in early 2014 / Photo by Cindy Margulis

“With this new protection on their winter roost, these birds will have a better chance to conserve their energy and be in peak condition when it’s time to move on to their nesting sites in the spring,” said GGBA Executive Director Cindy Margulis.

The protective fencing is a classic Audubon conservation success story — built on a combination of citizen-science monitoring, public education, and advocacy.

And while some conservation victories take years to win, this one took less than a year!

The story began in November 2013, when several GGBA members taking part in a Point Blue (formerly PRBO) shorebird survey discovered the roosting plover population.

“We all fell in love with the birds as soon as we found them,” Margulis said. “After a week we all talked again and realized one of us had been out there looking for them every day. We had a de facto survey going on.”

GGBA member Leora Feeney had been documenting the presence of plovers at Crown Beach for years. But the new, larger group of plover advocates made it easier to bring them to the attention of the East Bay Regional Park District, which manages Crown Beach.

GGBA members Sue Morgan, Tom and Diane Bennett, and Margulis visited the beach almost daily to record the plovers’ presence and document incidents of disturbance.…

Audubon California is supporting Proposition 1, the $7 billion state water bond that will be on the California ballot in November. Here are the reasons, summed up by Mike Lynes, Policy Director for Audubon California and former Executive Director of Golden Gate Bird Alliance.

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