Speakers Archive - Golden Gate Bird Alliance

Restoring the San Franciso Bay Estuary: Wetlands, Birds and More!

The San Francisco Bay is the largest estuary on the west coast of the United States, and is home to a wide range of birds, from rails to shorebirds, waders, and ducks. Over 90% of the tidal wetlands around the estuary have been lost, but there is now large-scale local support for protecting and restoring the estuary. We’ll review efforts to restore San Franciso Bay wetlands, including challenges and opportunities associated with sea-level rise and climate change, and implications for local birds.

About Our Speaker

John Callaway is a wetland ecologist who specializes in plant and soil ecology of tidal wetlands, but his original motivation for researching wetlands was driven by an interest in waterbirds. He recently retired from Department of Environmental Science at the University of San Francisco. His research has focused on sea-level rise impacts, carbon sequestration, and restoration issues for salt and brackish marshes in the San Francisco Bay estuary.

Date: Thursday, April 17, 2025 (7pm)

Location: Online via Zoom

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87631566197?pwd=Eb7h5It2RWiLoBoJbzAML0KE2TYHG7.1

Passcode: 381334…

Lend an ear: Studying Hearing in Songbirds

Songbirds communicate with one another for many reasons – to find and attract a mate, to defend their territory, or even to band together to ward off a predator. However, levels of human-generated noise, also known as anthropogenic noise, and encroachment into bird habitats continue to rise year after year. Birds are thus faced with the ever-increasing challenge of still communicating with one another amidst these changes. The naturally occurring mixed-species flocks of black-capped chickadees, tufted titmice, and white-breasted nuthatches offer the perfect means to understand how anti-predatory behaviors are affected by noise, and how these behaviors may be explained by the species’ auditory physiology. This walk will answer questions about how these songbirds communicate in rising levels of urban noise, and how their signals have evolved/are evolving to overcome the challenges of anthropogenic noise.

About Our Speaker: Trina Chou is currently a second-year Ph.D. student in the Ecology of Evolutionary Biology Department at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, studying acoustic communication in treefrogs and other anuran species with Dr. Jessie Tanner. She originally hails from Sunnyvale in the South Bay Area and she graduated from Vassar College in the Spring of 2023 as a Neuroscience and Behavior Major. At Vassar, she worked in Dr. Megan Gall’s lab for three years studying anti-predator behaviors and communication between black-capped chickadees, tufted titmice, and white-breasted nuthatches.

Date: Thursday, February 20, 2025 (6pm)

Location: Online via Zoom

Zoom Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83222428797?pwd=9i6Ppa4ecLWnScO3fTtu1Oa3spyvob.1

Passcode: 944037…

Alcatraz Island – A Climate Refuge for Seabirds

Alcatraz Island Brandt’s Cormorants moved into San Francisco Bay in the early 1990s during a coastward population shift. Alcatraz is now one of the largest Brandt’s Cormorant breeding colonies, outperforming its ocean counterparts despite a high level of human disturbance in this urban setting. The bay hosts a large anchovy population and demersal fish nursery, with strong tidal currents and the river plume into the ocean concentrating prey for seabirds and other predators. We are working to mitigate anthropogenic stressors to support this important colony and increase seabird resilience to climate change.

Julie Thayer has worked in the California Current marine ecosystem for three decades, with a brief hiatus on the north coast of Brazil. She studied at the University of California at Santa Cruz/Long Marine Lab and UC Davis in Marine Biology and Ecology. Thayer has done field research on Alcatraz seabirds, studying population changes, diet, productivity, and human distrubance to Brandt’s Cormorants and Western Gulls since 1990.

Date: Thursday, March 20, 2025 (7pm)

Location: Online via Zoom

Zoom Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82062580580?pwd=JbHzA9NssDTyrD0Vs58Yy1S2XX8xV0.1

Passcode: 404139…

The most overlooked birds in North America: Females

Female birds often hide in plain sight. Typically drabber and more inconspicuous than males, there is an unconscious bias towards male birds in birdwatching, photography, and even in our scientific knowledge about birds. This talk explores the history of focus on male birds, why it’s important to focus on females, and gives female bird identification tips. Joanna challenges the audience to confront their own biases in our pursuit of birds

About Our Speaker: Joanna Wu is a PhD student studying female birds in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UCLA. She previously worked at the National Audubon Society and is a member of the Galbatross Project, a group of birders, scientists, writers, and conservationists who are passionate about spreading awareness about female birds.

Date: Thursday, January 16 @ 7pm

Location: Online via Zoom

Zoom Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85100101253?pwd=a7NPTNa1V2rL640GDMj9vAeJvXIXFP.1
Passcode: 330162

Event Photo: Kingfisher/Graham Montgomery via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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Travel Speaker SEries: Total Uruguay

Last year GGBA offered Total Uruguay for the first time—a 15-day small group trip at a great price. Two of the participants on that inaugural trip, Viviana Wolinsky and Steve Hunter, will lead us on a GGBA Travel Program Speakers trip through Uruguay.

What can you expect to see? While Uruguay is a small country (roughly the size of Washington state) with a temperature climate (very similar to ours in California), it has a wide range of habitats: the Pampas, the Atlantic Forest, savannas, wetlands, ocean coasts, countless riparian corridors, grasslands, ravines, several hill ranges, and palm tree forests. This richness in habitat types results in a great diversity of bird species that can be seen easily in a short time traveling short distances. Uruguay is also an important feeding and breeding destination for many migrant species.

We’re visiting Uruguay again next year in November (Austral Spring) when we’ll see birds on migration to the southernmost areas of South America as well as South American birds coming to nest in Uruguay.

On our tour we’ll visit the country’s most important birding hot spots, including every national park and the majority of the country’s IBAs (Important Bird Areas). Expect to see 250 species of birds on this trip!

Date: Thursday, November 7 (7pm)

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