Be Your Own Bird & Help Migratory Birds

It's World Migratory Bird Day! Be Your Own Bird AND Help Birds - Buy "Be Your Own Bird"  and I'll donate half the proceeds to bird conservation efforts:

World Migratory Bird Day is an annual, UN-backed global awareness-raising and environmental education campaign focused on migratory birds and the need for international cooperation to conserve them.
"World Migratory Bird Day is celebrated each year to highlight the need for the conservation of migratory birds and their habitats. More than 300 events in more than 60 countries to mark World Migratory Bird Day 2018 (registered on the website) will include bird festivals, education programmes, media events, bird watching trips, presentations, film screenings and a benefit concert to raise funds for international nature conservation. The Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) and the African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement (AEWA) — two intergovernmental wildlife treaties administered by UN Environment — organize the campaign in cooperation with Environment for the Americas (EFTA). EFTA works with diverse partners to provide English and Spanish educational materials and information about birds and bird conservation throughout the Americas. Their programmes inspire children and adults to go outdoors, learn about birds, and participate in their conservation. www.worldmigratorybirdday.org/partners"

Osprey Nest Cam Awesomeness from Golden Gate Audubon

Whether you're an avid birder or just in need of some faith renewal, the new Osprey nest cam installed by Golden Gate Audubon last week offers a quick fix. Not only do you get a veritable birds-eye view, you get a great gander at the beautiful bay and city skyline.

GGA installed two high-definition cameras focused on a nest on a 75-foot-high inactive WW2 maritime crane on the Richmond shoreline. The cameras have infrared ability so the next can be viewed at night without disturbing the birds. There is a chat room on the web site, as well as educational materials on Ospreys and how to help them thrive, and even lesson plans for teachers of grades 7-12.

We've taken to leaving it on full-screen at random when we're home to view the beautiful birds in repose as well as feeding, preparing the nest, and mating (!). This weekend, the female laid its first egg so the action's just starting: Check it out at: http://sfbayospreys.org

Golden Gate Audubon is a founding member of the Bay Area Osprey Coalition, which includes organizations committed to helping this amazing raptor thrive!  Other members of the coalition include the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory (a project of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy) and Mare Island Preserve, which hosts our signature S.F. Bay Ospreys Days festival each June.

 

Hawk Hill Gypsy

One of my favorite 'reset' buttons is getting up to Hawk Hill in Marin County every couple weeks as a volunteer for Golden Gate Raptor Observatory. A 360-degree view of the Bay Area will put nearly everything back in perspective (plus helping track the Golden Gate Raptor migration not only restores my wonder but allows me to utilize some of my college-accredited field & ornithological skills). After a very full, long, fun weekend of music at FAR-West, I was back on the Hawk Hill Monday. Yesterday, our hours of counting were capped off by the release of a Red-Tail Hawk dubbed 'Gypsy' who will be tracked via Telemetry for clues on just how hawk spend their time. Hawk migration season runs into early December. Get up on the hill if you can! And find out more about GGRO at http://www.parksconservancy.org/programs/ggro/

A photo posted by Deborah Crooks (@deborahrcrooks) on Oct 19, 2015 at 4:31pm PDT

Then today I heard a great broadcast on NPR, with Terry Gross talking to wildlife photographer Gerrit Vyn and essayist Scott Weidensaul about some of the remarkable abilities of birds. Vyn and Weidensaul contributed to a new book about North American birds. Flights Of Fancy: Exploring The Songs And Pathways Of 'The Living Bird' http://n.pr/1KkI1HW

The Living Bird: 100 Years of Listening to Nature, by Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Gerrit Vyn, Barbara Kingsolver, Scott Weidensaul and Lyanda Lynn Haupt

 

Natural Necessity: Radical Conservation

 “The loss of a keystone species is like a drill accidentally striking a power line. It causes lights to go out all over.” — E.O. Wilson 

The natural world has always been my go-to, for solace, for perspective, for a sheer hit of beauty. And I'm fortunate to live in an area surrounded by slices of natural land and open space. I got out for a brief hour of beach and open space time yesterday and was delighted to see a host of avian wildlife (snowy plover, migrating hawks, harbor seals) and felt, for a moment, that there's plenty of hope for this beleaguered planet after all, even as I know how precarious as it is. So I more than heartily applaud evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson's proposal to permanently set aside half the earth for the 10 million plus species of wildlife with whom we share the planet. It's a bold challenge (and some say arrogant) but really, given the high rate of extinctions happening as I write this, mainly due to human caused climate change, deforestation, pollution and generally rampant environmental abuse, why not try?
Here are some conservation success stories and other conservation networks taking inspiring actions to make a difference:

The Conservation Alliance

Costa Rica Eco-Cultural Success

Turtle Runways and Pronghorn Highways

Western Wildway

Climate change, birds & wonder

I started my second year volunteering as a hawk watcher for Golden Gate Raptor Observatory a couple weeks back, which involves being part of a team tracking the fall migration of raptors, adding to a large effort "to inspire the preservation of California raptor populations." It's very hard not to be inspiring standing atop the Marin Headlands, looking over the amazing Bay Area, as the largest west coast migration goes flying by. I recommend anyone with a few hours to spare, get themselves up to Hawk Hill in the next few months.
I came off the hill yesterday, wonder restored, only to read the article Climate Change Will Disrupt Half of North America’s Bird Species, Study Says. The New York Times report on the National Audubon's findings that 'the ranges of some species are predicted to shrink at least 50 percent by 2080,' was chilling.  My momentary cold thought was that I was thankful I likely wouldn't be around to see it, as I don't know I could bear it. But the truth is, 'it' is happening now, it just might not be so obvious yet.

Climate change = shrinking habitat

 So much of my experience of being in place, of living, is affected by the birds around me: hearing the sound of a towhee peeping when I wake up, seeing a hawk learning to fly from a coastal stage, and watching Western bluebirds flitting along a fence line at the park provide context.  I see a bird and something in me remembers hey, the world is vast and marvelous beyond my wildest imaginings.
I know not everyone is this way.  I've lived in enough urban environments where the diversity of birds is slim to know that many people's life experience simply doesn't account for feathered animals, while my sensibility is shaped by having grown up in the country surrounded by trees and birds and insects. My family charted the seasons by swarming bees, returning swallows and Pyracantha-gorging waxwings. Volunteering to Hawk watch puts me back in that stream, which reminds me to care.

Back to the very uncomfortable topic of climate change, the UN is having a summit in New York in a couple of weeks, and climate activists are rallying to call for action. As environmental author and leader Bill McKibbon writes 'Marching doesn’t solve anything by itself. But movements can shift political power—in fact, little else ever does.'
You can sign up to march or donate to the cause here http://act.350.org/signup/readytomarch

Of futurists and falcons

Glenn Nevill photo http://raptor-gallery.com/

A former coworker told me his father was a futurist. "You should look him up when you're in Austin," he said. This was a while ago now, close to a decade ago, when I was thinking of moving to Texas. I'd sometimes house-sit for a friend and live there for an odd week or 10 days at a time. So I did look him up, the futurist, and he took me to lunch.

He assured me that it was good to like a do a bunch of different things, so you don't get too attached or over-invested and get devastated when if something doesn't work out quite as you envisioned. I don't know if he was right, but I still take comfort in his words, especially on days which find me alternately in a yoga studio, writing a song at home and standing under a tree looking through binoculars as a couple of falcons wheel and turn in the sky.

One of my long-held passions are raptors and their conservation, a potential career path deferred decades ago to follow other threads of interest. Wednesday I drove to one end of Alameda to join a motley crew of bird lovers who knew a biologist was going to show up at 10:30 to band three not-yet-fledged peregrine falcons being reared on a local railroad bridge. Binoculars in hand and peering through spotting scopes, we settled into watching the biologists and a photographer as they ascended the tower and the parent falcons went berserk over the intruders. 

While we had an amazing view of falcons in flight, after a few minutes, it got uncomfortable watching the parent falcons flying themselves to near-exhaustion, careening back and forth in front of the trestle, cacking in the rising heat, following their instinctual drive to protect their young. I nearly started crying out of a helpless concern. At the same time, I was impressed with their vigilance. They tired but they didn't give up, taking rests and tag-teaming their assaults on the hard-hat wearing biologists.
Persistence is why peregrines are still here. After being nearly decimated by the affect of DDT in the 1970s, an intrepid network of falconers, biologists and bird lovers in tandem with the tenacious if endangered species worked their way back from the brink of extinction.
Futurists "explore predictions and possibilities about the future and how they can emerge from the present." Amid melting snow caps and my own doubts, I appreciate a good recovery story, which these falcons, once so threatened and now nesting in back of grocery stores and in city centers, symbolize to me.  

BioBlitz! Golden Gate National Parks, CA Friday-Saturday, March 28-29, 2014

LOTS of great events happening this weekend in the Bay Area. On the natural history and biodiversity front, Golden Gate National Parks is holding BioBlitz Festival, March 28-29, a 24-hour species count of the many inhabitants of GGNP. Birds and snakes and who knows what else (oh my!). 
Check it out at Crissy Field, Hawk Hill, Muir Beach and beyond....
"The three national park units that make up the Golden Gate National Parks encompass more than 80,000 acres and 91 miles of shoreline along the northern California coast. These parks are home to an amazing array of biodiversity, including over half of the bird species of North America and nearly one-third of California’s plant species!

To better understand, appreciate, and protect this natural treasure, the National Park Service, National Geographic, Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, and Presidio Trust are teaming up to host a 24-hour BioBlitz species count and two-day Biodiversity Festival, Friday-Saturday, March 28-29, 2014.

BioBlitz 2014 will take place in several national parks, including Muir Woods National Monument, Fort Point National Historic Site, and locations in Golden Gate National Recreation Area including the Giacomini wetlands, Muir Beach, the Marin Headlands, Crissy Field, the Presidio, Mori Point, and Rancho Corral de Tierra.

Part scientific endeavor, part festival, and part outdoor classroom, BioBlitz will bring together more than 300 leading scientists and naturalists from around the country, thousands of local community members of all ages, and more than 2,000 students from across the Bay Area."

Hear more about the Blitz, and how scientists are working year-round to catalog and conserve local biodiversity on KQED's Forum, as host Dave Iverson talked with guests John Francis, biologist and vice president of research, conservation and exploration at National Geographic, and Allen Fish, director of the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory for the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy:

Hawk Hill during fall migration 

Spring Forward: The Birds are Back in Town

Driving into Alameda last week, we were pleased to see the local pair of peregrine falcons had resumed their posts at their bridge nest-site.  The annual falcon watch has heated up all over the Bay in recent weeks, as evidenced by the activity on  the WebCams the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group has installed to keep tabs on the activity of breeding pairs of the once-endangered birds in San Francisco and San Jose.  If you're interested in falcon courtship, breeding and fledging behavior, look no further.  Both SF and SJ pairs produced their first eggs during the past week, with more expected.
"The peregrine falcon is an important indicator species. Its carefully recorded population trends can be instructive about ecosystem health. We closely monitor the occupancy and productivity of peregrine falcons at approximately twenty-five nests in our Greater San Francisco Bay study area, and we band nestlings at a sample of those sites to learn more about the longevity, nest site tenacity, and juvenile dispersal patterns of Central California peregrine falcons. Citizen scientists around the bay report sightings of banded falcons."

Sparing the Air

I've been enjoying a lovely year-end spate of writing, rest and relaxation punctuated by social gatherings and good cheer. Over the weekend, we got out on the boat on a nearly wind-free day to drift more than sail around the Bay. It was gorgeous and quiet and relatively warm. Only thing was a thin layer of smog visible on the horizon. Amid all the year-end revelry and hopeful prognostications for 2014, I've a creeping awareness of how dry its been. While it's been a personally satisfying year, it's also been California's Driest Year on Record. Ouch!
What to do? While your making New Year's resolutions and lists, give some thought to the environment as well.
The Spare the Air site has many resources for how to spare the air every day. Take a look:

• Commute Tips
• At Home
• Garden

Save Our H20is also a good resource for husbanding our precious water resources.

Watch Neil Young - Mother Earth

Wolves, now falcons: Staying the course for wildlife protection

"To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival."—Wendell Berry  

As some folks know, my nature-loving self was pretty excited to realize peregrine falcons weren't only off the Endangered Species list, they were nesting right in my backyard. One of the great things about life is seeing how things develop and turn out over time (especially when things go well) and this was a great example: a population of a bird species rendered near-extinct by the use of dangerous pesticide had — over the course of several decades through the efforts of a team of committed people— been painstakingly recovered. But much like the paradoxal information about wolf populations in Wyoming I recently posted — it's now possible to hunt the once endangered, now recovered-but-still-tenuous animal — federal officials are no longer permitting rescues (by qualified ready-to-assist biologists) of peregrine chicks who fall from their nests into the San Francisco Bay, even though the peregrine is still a 'protected' species.  Huhh? 
 Evidently this is a 'local decision' by wildlife officials, but foreboding if one looks at the record of recent treatment of once-endangered animals. If you're like me and prefer to live in a world with wildlife left in it, and don't really see the sense in this decision, please write your protest to:

Ren Lohoefener, Regional Director, US Fish and Wildlife Service, 2800 Cottage Way, W-2606 Sacramento, CA 95825

Update: Sign the petition to Restore the Permit to Rescue Falcon Chicks https://www.change.org/petitions/us-fws-restore-the-permit-to-rescue-falcon-chicks-on-bridges#share

Other resources:
http://www.audubon.org/
ttp://www2.ucsc.edu/scpbrg/

Mountain Towns, Wolves & Winding Roads

I awoke this morning and thought, 'oh, duh, Laramie is a mountain town.' Sure there were cowboys and cowgirls dancing in the street to a band wearing LARGE cowboy hats, and it's pretty flat in town overall, but the elevation is 7165' and the thunderstorms mountain-issue. We waited in the car for an extra half hour before unloading our gear last night as lightning flashed, thunder rumbled, and a deluge of rainwater filled the gutters. Earlier in the day, before the clouds moved in, we did a short walk/hike on the Happy Jack Trail in the Medicine Bow National Forest, 15 minutes out of town. Today, starting our return trip home, we drove the Medicine Bow Scenic Byway west, enjoying views of 12,000 foot peaks and... a wolf! By its size and color, we were sure it wasn't a coyote loping through a clearing in the woods, but we weren't certain of our assessment until a little fact checking revealed Wyoming wolf populations are deemed 'healthy' enough to permit a hunt. The concept of trophy hunting these animals is not a pleasant thought to my mind. Especially since Wyoming wolves were just down listed from Endangered and Threatened Status in 2012. Ugh. 

I read more about wolf population numbers and hunting math here: http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2012/12/29/wyomings-first-wolf-hunt-soon-to-close/, and found that in most of the state, wolves are considered a Predatory animal and can be shot on sight. Double Ugh. But even placing my views on killing/hunting animals aside, it appears more protection of wolves is warranted and justified to maintain a viable population of this native animal. The wolves' clearly beleaguered status notwithstanding, we felt privileged to see a gray wolf, for a moment, running free.

 

* Save the Gray Wolf https://secure.defenders.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=savewolves_homepage

& Wyoming Wolf Facts http://wgfd.wyo.gov/web2011/news-1001287.aspx

Falcon Watch

Peregrine territory

When I was in Encinitas last month, I met a fellow yoga student who told me of the volunteering she did in Chicago as a bird collision monitor. Confused by city lights and tall glass buildings during the spring and fall migration, there's a big problem with migratory birds being lost to collisions with the tall buildings. 
Something in me perked up as I listened to her tell about her bird work. In college I changed my major in large part so I could work with the Predatory Bird Research Group and spent a couple summers working at hack sites to help the effort to recover Peregrine Falcon populations, a gratifying experience on many levels. Inspired anew, I came home from Encinitas thinking of ways I might again get involved with bird conservation work in my area.

Amid reading up on the possibility of volunteering with Golden Gate Raptor Observatory and the proposed Alameda Wildlife Refuge, I caught up on what was going on the PBRG these days.  Peregrines were down listed from an Endangered Species to a Threatened Species in 1999 so the PBRO doesn't run (to my knowledge) a breeding program anymore. Nonetheless, close monitoring and research continues, and peregrines have steadily recovered, populating both wild and urban sites. I knew about the falcons on the Bay Bridge and those in the PG&E Building in San Francisco. I knew about the falcons on Morro Rock...but my eyes just about popped out of my head when one of the first stories I read was about a nesting pair of peregrines on a bridge here in Alameda!

Friday we visited the Alameda site and found a group of dedicated peregrine watchers (some who drive a couple of hours to see them) with scopes trained on the bridge. Four young falcons had just fledged that week — the female that very day — and we were treated to a great view of the adults dive-bombing a great blue heron flying a little too close to their territory.

I've been geeking out on the falcons since: excited that it's prime time for a close look at not one, but four falcons, hunting, feeding and learning to fly, and delighted I live so close as to have the privilege of seeing them often. I got a little sad when I realized I'd be going to Southern California later this week and would miss some days of seeing the birds develop their flight skills....

I went out to the estuary this evening to watch the falcons, which are audible as soon as you round a corner of a shopping center (a slightly surreal experience). We watched as the adult female chased off some gulls. We watched two of the young adults chase after their parent who was clutching a just-killed pigeon (high-drama for bird lovers). As I was chatting with one of the dedicated falcon watchers, she mentioned seeing other falcons around the state...including Pasadena. Again, my eyes widened. Evidently, there's an active falcon nest three blocks from where we'll be staying later in the week. Guess I'm packing binoculars....