Skip to content
  • Home
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • About Our Staff
    • About Our Board
    • Our Commitment to Diversity
    • GGBA Code of Conduct
    • Strategic Plan
    • Annual Report
    • Job Opportunities
    • GGBA in the News
  • Blog
  • Osprey Cam
  • Contact Us
    • Contact Us
    • Join/Renew
    • Donate
    • Other Ways to Give
    • Planned Giving
    • Member Login
    • Corporate Partnerships
    • Violation Report
Golden Gate Bird Alliance
Golden Gate Bird Alliance
  • Education
    • Speaker Series
      • Past Speakers
    • Eco-Ed for Kids
    • Classes
      • Birding For Everyone Scholarship
    • Rotary Nature Center
  • Conservation
    • Conservation Info
    • Christmas Bird Counts
    • Bird-Friendly Coffee Club
  • Volunteer
  • Bird With Us
    • Birdathon 2023
    • Field Trips
    • Classes
      • Birding For Everyone Scholarship
    • Christmas Bird Counts
    • SF Bay Ospreys
    • Travel With GGBA
    • Birding Sites
    • Birding Resources
  • Archives
    • Trip Reports by Year
    • Past Speakers
    • The Gull Archives
    • GGBA Press Releases
    • Travel with GGBA – Past Tours
  • Log In
  • Donate
  • Become a Member
Golden Gate Bird Alliance
Golden Gate Bird Alliance
  • Education
    • Speaker Series
      • Past Speakers
    • Eco-Ed for Kids
    • Classes
      • Birding For Everyone Scholarship
    • Rotary Nature Center
  • Conservation
    • Conservation Info
    • Christmas Bird Counts
    • Bird-Friendly Coffee Club
  • Volunteer
  • Bird With Us
    • Birdathon 2023
    • Field Trips
    • Classes
      • Birding For Everyone Scholarship
    • Christmas Bird Counts
    • SF Bay Ospreys
    • Travel With GGBA
    • Birding Sites
    • Birding Resources
  • Archives
    • Trip Reports by Year
    • Past Speakers
    • The Gull Archives
    • GGBA Press Releases
    • Travel with GGBA – Past Tours
  • Log In
  • Donate
  • Become a Member
 

2014 Oakland CBC — great day, no rain

  • December 15, 2014

By Ilana DeBare

The Bay Area’s welcome rainstorms let up for 24 hours on Sunday… just long enough for more than 200 birders to have a fabulous Oakland Christmas Bird Count.

Sunday December 14 marked the start of the 115th year of Audubon Christmas Bird Counts, and the 74th such count in Oakland.

Registration in advance came to 287 people, a new record for Oakland. Last year the Oakland count was the fourth largest in North America, and this year’s count is likely to be in the top five again.

With logistical planning that practically rivaled D-Day, count organizers Bob Lewis and Dave Quady sent 29 teams out into the field to tally birds on the bay and shoreline, on hilltops and in ravines, at cemeteries, college campuses, parking lots, city streets, and golf courses.

Then about 130 participants gathered to celebrate and compare notes over dinner at Northbrae Community Church in Berkeley.

The preliminary, incomplete tally was 176 species — short of the Oakland record of 183, but still a respectable total.

San Leandro Bay count team. Photo by Nancy Johnston.
San Leandro Bay count team. Photo by Nancy Johnston.
Counting at Lake Merritt. Photo by Ilana DeBare
Counting at Lake Merritt. Photo by Ilana DeBare
Lots of scaup but no Tufted Duck on Lake Merritt / Photo by Ilana DeBare
Lots of scaup but no Tufted Duck on Lake Merritt. Photo by Ilana DeBare

Notable this year were large numbers of Acorn Woodpeckers and Varied Thrushes, species that are not typically common in most of the Oakland count circle. The Tilden North count team spotted 74 Varied Thrushes, while Tilden South spotted 118!

“There were Acorn Woodpeckers all over,” count organizer Dave Quady said. “It’s probably due to some combination of a prolific breeding year and a shortage of acorns east of us” (where the birds are more typically found).

The count was featured in vivid news coverage by the San Francisco Chronicle, Contra Costa Times, and Channel 7.

It drew both longtime birders and people who were new to the CBC.

On the longtime end of things, the Merritt College team was made up of Anthony Fisher, his two brothers, and his nephew. The Fishers grew up in that neighborhood and used to bird there as kids when Campus Drive was a meadow rather than a subdivision.

“It was a rolling meadow above the quarry, with snags and Western Bluebirds nesting in them,” Fisher recalled.

Fisher family count team at Merritt College / Photo by Ilana DeBare
Fisher family count team at Merritt College / Photo by Ilana DeBare

On the newer end of things, this was the first count for Susanna Kwan, who started birding last January and joined the Mills College count team. “I had never noticed birds before,” she said. “Now I’m good at spotting them, although not so much at identifying them. I’ve gotten my backyard birds down pretty well.”

Susanna Kwan (right) and a friend on the Mills College count team / Photo by Ilana DeBare
Susanna Kwan (right) and a friend on the Mills College count team / Photo by Ilana DeBare

This year’s CBC didn’t offer up any individual avian celebrities like last year’s Painted Redstart. The familiar Tufted Duck at Lake Merritt hadn’t been seen yet this season, and didn’t turn up on Sunday either.

California Thrasher, spotted in Upper Knowland Park. Photo by Pat Bacchetti.
California Thrasher, spotted in Upper Knowland Park. Photo by Pat Bacchetti.
Wood Ducks at Lake Temescal. Photo by Doug Mosher.
Wood Ducks at Lake Temescal. Photo by Doug Mosher.

But there were plenty of memorable moments for count teams and individuals, such as:

  • A female Kingfisher eating a fish at Lake Merritt.
  • An Osprey over Lake Temescal, and two at San Leandro Bay.
  • Lots of owls… Western Screech, Great Horned, Long-eared, Northern Saw-whet, Barn, and Burrowing.
  • Seventeen Snowy Plovers in Alameda, and one at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park too.
  • A Peregrine Falcon grabbing a Northern Shoveller in Alameda.
  • A Bald Eagle and Golden Eagle in Lafayette.
  • Sixty-nine White Pelicans at San Pablo Reservoir, along with a family of six river otters.
  • Two Barn Swallows in Alameda — the only such sighting in the Oakland count circle in the past 40 years.
  • Birding by golf cart at Sequoyah Country Club… and then meeting an unusual red-hued seasonal migrant there.
Birding by golf cart at Sequoyah Country Club / Photo by Lori Lewis
Birding by golf cart at Sequoyah Country Club / Photo by Lori Lewis
Spotting an unusual species at Sequoyah Country Club
Spotting an unusual species at Sequoyah Country Club

At the compilation dinner, Bob Lewis noted the presence of a new species on the count list for the first time — Ridgway’s Rail.

“This is the first time we’ve ever seen a Ridgway’s Rail!” he announced.

And then added, for anyone who had missed the news from last summer, “It’s the same old Clapper Rail. It just got a new name.”

—————————

For LOTS more photos of the count and the compilation dinner, see the two albums on our Facebook page. Do you have photos from the count? Post them on our Facebook page, and we’ll add them to the album.

Next year’s Oakland CBC — the 75th Oakland count! — will be held on Sunday December 20, 2015. Mark your calendar now so you can join the fun. Meanwhile, our San Francisco CBC is coming up on Tuesday December 30, 2014.

The festive CBC dinner / Photo by Ilana DeBare
The festive CBC dinner / Photo by Ilana DeBare
Tallying totals at the count dinner / Photo by Ilana DeBare
Tallying totals at the count dinner / Photo by Ilana DeBare
Count organizers Bob Lewis and Dave Quady at the dinner / Photo by Ilana DeBare
Count organizers Bob Lewis and Dave Quady at the dinner / Photo by Ilana DeBare
PrevPreviousChristmas Bird Count by boat, Part 2
NextBird TonguesNext
Facebook Instagram Youtube Twitter

Follow Golden Gate Birder by email

Click to follow our blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Subscribe

Loading...
A Day in the Life of a Climate-Friendly Birder
August 14, 2023
Lights out for Larry: The Burden of Brightness on Birds
August 8, 2023
Dotson Family Marsh− How We Got This Great Gift
July 27, 2023
How to Thrive as an SOB (Spouse of Birder)
June 28, 2023
The Berkeley-Stanford Birdathon
June 22, 2023
The Curious Case of Mama Kite
June 14, 2023
Birdathon 2023 Breaks Records
June 8, 2023
These Binoculars are Out of this World!
May 10, 2023
From the Sierras to the Mojave: A Search for the Yellow-Billed Cuckoo
May 3, 2023
The Golden Gate Gulls Go Birding
April 25, 2023

Our Mission

To inspire people to protect Bay Area birds and our shared natural environment.

Our Vision

A world where birds, wildlife, and all people flourish together.

Home page photo of a Bald Eagle by Rick Lewis. Home page photos rotate on an occasional basis. If you have a Bay Area bird photo you would like us to consider, email us at rnakano@goldengateaudubon.org.

Home page bird illustrations by Tex Buss. We are grateful for her generous donation of time and talent!

Facebook Instagram Youtube Twitter

Contact Us

Golden Gate Bird Alliance
2150 Allston Way Suite 210
Berkeley, California 94704

Phone: 510.843.2222

Office hours: Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The Golden Gate Bird Alliance is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Our federal tax ID number is 94-6086896

Join Our Email List

Sign up to receive our eGull newsletter and get updates on other Golden Gate Bird Alliance news and opportunities!

Subscribe
© 2023 Golden Gate Bird Alliance | All Rights Reserved
All photos on this site belong to the photographers and may not be used without written permission.
  • About Us
    • About Our Staff
    • About Our Board
    • Our Commitment to Diversity
    • GGAS StrategicPlan
    • GGAS in the News
    • Job Opportunities
  • Education
    • Speaker Series
      • Past Speakers
    • Classes
      • Rotary Nature Center
    • Eco-Ed for Kids
  • Volunteer
  • Conservation
    • Bird-Friendly Coffee Club
  • GGAS Archives
    • The Gull Archives
    • GGAS Press Releases
    • Travel with GGAS – Past Tours
    • Past Speakers
  • Bird With Us
    • Field Trips
    • Travel with GGAS
    • SF Bay Ospreys
    • Christmas Bird Counts
    • The Gull
    • Golden Gate Birder Blog
      • Birdathon 2021
    • Corporate Partnerships
    • Member Login
    • Trip Reports by Year
    • Contact Us
      • Join/Renew
      • Other Ways to Give
      • Planned Giving
    • Member Login
    • Volunteer Hours Reporting
    • Birding Resources
      • Conservation Info
  • Blog
  • Donate