Fort Mason: Birding Hotspot
By David Assmann
Community gardens provide an easily accessible retreat from the concrete jungle of a city, even a city as scenic as San Francisco. What makes them even more idyllic is that they are filled with vibrant bird life. Fort Mason not only has a community garden open to the public, but is also one of the top birding hotspots in the city, with an eBird list of 180 species.
Situated on a bluff above the Bay, the key to Fort Mason’s diversity of bird life is its location and varied topography, providing a refuge for aquatic and land birds as well as migrants. One of the attractions of this birding hotspot is its compactness — upper Fort Mason, which is the main birding area, is only 68 acres in size, making it an easy place to bird, even if you have only an hour.
Fort Mason wasn’t always a hospitable site for birds. First reserved for the U.S. military in 1850 because of its strategic location, Fort Mason was the U.S. Army’s major West Coast shipping port until the end of the 1950s. More than 1.6 million members of the military traveled through Fort Mason on their way to the Pacific during World War II. What is now the Great Meadow was entirely covered by buildings until the 1970s, when Fort Mason became part of the first national urban park, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
Fort Mason’s Great Meadow in the fog / Photo by David Assmann
Since I started birding, Fort Mason has become my guide for the changing of the seasons. It isn’t fall for me until the Red-Breasted Sapsucker returns from the Sierra at the end of September to take up residence for the winter at Fort Mason. I know winter has ended in late March when the same sapsucker spends a day roaming around Fort Mason instead of sticking to its adopted trees and then disappears, headed for the mountains.
Similarly, I don’t consider it winter until the Red-Breasted Mergansers swim in Aquatic Park in December. I know winter is drawing to a close when the Allen’s Hummingbirds show up in February. The first Western Kingbird migrating through marks spring for me. Summer begins when the resident Downy Woodpeckers and Pygmy Nuthatches start raising young. (Last year a pair of each raised their young in the same tree with nest holes less than a foot apart.)…