Birding News & Inspiration from Golden Gate Audubon
By Ilana DeBare
Whew. The fundraising is over, the birding is over, the judging is over, and now even the celebrating is over.
And get this — together we raised more than $47,000 in Birdathon 2013!
This is by far the most we’ve ever raised in four years of Birdathons. In addition, our expenses this year were much less than in the past, in part because Alan Harper and Carol Baird donated their beaut…
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By Ilana DeBare
Last month we wrote about the Caltrans netting on a Petaluma bridge construction site that was trapping and killing dozens of Cliff Swallows.
Many Golden Gate Audubon members — as well as other conservation groups — wrote to Caltrans asking it to adopt less lethal methods of keeping birds from nesting on the bridge during construction. But Caltrans hasn’t list…
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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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By Ilana DeBare
For the past two years, we’ve been fighting plans by the city of San Francisco to create artificial-turf soccer fields with stadium-style lighting in western Golden Gate Park, an area that was intended in city plans to remain more natural and less developed.
We lost a round in this battle last summer before the city’s planning and parks commissions.
But next week, the issue …
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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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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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By Ilana DeBare
Fifteen wiggly fourth graders crowded into a narrow asphalt strip between their North Richmond schoolyard and the fence bordering Rheem Creek. “You are standing in what may be your future rain garden!” declared landscape architect Bob Birkeland, a volunteer with Golden Gate Audubon’s Eco-Education program.
That didn’t seem to mean much to the kids, who wer…
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