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.  

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."

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/

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....