Birding Archive

One year of plover habitat help May 13, 2013

Posted by GGAS in Birding, Conservation, Golden Gate Audubon Western Snowy Plover with leg bands for scientific research / Photo by Matthew Zlatunich

By Corny Foster

If you are walking the north end of Crissy Field beach in the Presidio, you can easily mistake a Western Snowy Plover for one more ripple of sand. Camouflage helps the plovers evade predators. It is also the reason that few people know the birds are there until they almost step on them!

Luckily, there are some people who are highly aware of the plovers – Golden Gate Audubon and National Park Se…

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Bluebirds in Berkeley…. again! May 7, 2013

Posted by GGAS in Birding Male Western Bluebird / Photo by Allen Hirsch

By Ilana DeBare

It’s been one full year since we started this Golden Gate Birder blog!

In that time, our busy and talented members have written posts about grebe courtship at Clear Lake; Bald Eagle nest monitoring at Lake Chabot; falcon nesting drama in downtown San Francisco; birding in the style of a native Miwok tribes person; the difference between “birders” and “birdwa

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Viewing birds through their nests May 3, 2013

Posted by GGAS in Birding Nest_Barnswallow_nu2

San Francisco photographer Sharon Beals will be a guest exhibitor at our Birdathon Awards Dinner on Sunday May 19th. Sharon is the author of Nests: Fifty Nests and the Birds that Built Them, published by Chronicle Books. For the nests in her book, she turned to the collections of the California Academy of Sciences, the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, and the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology. Join u…

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Birdathon sails south (to Elkhorn Slough) April 21, 2013

Posted by Bob Lewis in Birding, Golden Gate Audubon Th ever-popular sea otters / Photo by Bob Lewis

By Bob Lewis

Eleven friends of Golden Gate Audubon did a Birdathon trip near Monterey on April 15 aboard the Elkhorn Slough Safari boat, finding about 43 species in two hours, and photographing many.  Although the weather report promised high winds and cold temperatures, the elements held off and the morning was pleasant.  Captain Yohn is expert at maneuvering close to animals without spooking them, …

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Midway through Birdathon madness April 14, 2013

Posted by Ilana DeBare in Birding, Golden Gate Audubon Cinnamon Teal at Coyote Hills, Fremont / Photo by Jerry Ting

By Ilana DeBare

If this blog has been a little quiet for the past couple of weeks, it’s because we’ve been spending a lot of time on the (annoying, frustrating, necessary) administrative details of our annual Birdathon, which runs throughout the month of April.

But here’s the payoff for all that administrative scutwork — time in the field for Birdathon participants!

Jerry Tin…

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Crows in love March 25, 2013

Posted by GGAS in Birding American Crow / Photo by Bob Lewis

By Verne Nelson

Yesterday I saw two crows perform the mating ritual. As I discovered later on the Internet, apparently this is rarely observed because it is only done at bond formation and the bond lasts for life.

It happened in a parking lot. I was sitting on a bench in view of it when I heard odd but crow-like sounds. Can’t remember the sound, however when I looked I saw the male standing over a h…

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The Revive & Restore project to de-extinct birds March 20, 2013

Posted by Jack Dumbacher in Birding, Conservation One of a series of Passenger Pigeon eggs held at the California Academy of Sciences, collected by the Mailliard Brothers on May 22nd, 1869. Photo by Jack Dumbacher

By Jack Dumbacher

What iconic north American bird used to be the most abundant bird species on earth, but is definitely not on your life list?  The Passenger Pigeon, Ectopistes migratorius.  But if Bay Area innovators Stewart Brand and Ryan Phelan have their way, you may be able to see them again, live in feathered form.

Extinction – the end of a gene pool – is regarded as the final step from which there …

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