GGAS Blog

Come for the Birds, Stay for the Chocolate
By Ryan Nakano Lately, I’ve been wondering what I enjoy most about birding. As a novice, it’s hard to say that it has anything to do with generating a long list, chasing after a rare bird, or even really identifying different bird species by sight or sound. I think what I’m starting to realize is,

Birding Travel in Covid Year Three
Birding travel fulfills a deep need for many of us. Yet with Covid, the joys of birding travel exist alongside fear and anxieties.

Saved by a Pigeon
By Patsy Wood While we may not realize it, an estimated 100,000 carrier pigeons served in the U.S. military in World War I and 95% of these pigeons were successful in completing their missions. Carrier pigeons were crucial messengers of information between humans during the war and due to the efforts of a single pigeon

Annie + Grinnell 4EVA
By Megan Fradley-Smith The morning of March 31 dawned with sweet promise.: Annie, one half of the famous Cal Falcons, was due to lay her much-anticipated third egg. After a nesting season full of violence, injury, and love triangles, her adoring fans were ready to finally breathe easy. I was up early, coffee in hand,

Progress towards a Point Molate park
By Ilana DeBare When a struggle to save a natural area from development has been going on for 25 years, every small step forward is more than welcome. Golden Gate Audubon Society and its allies in the fight to save Point Molate were heartened on March 18 when the Richmond City Council rejected a proposed

From the Trees to the Streets to Safety
By Ryan Nakano On the corner of 12th and Harrison and along the perimeter of the Oakland Museum of California, nesting herons and egrets make a home among 10 large ficus trees. Unfortunately for many chicks, the streets below spell only danger. “The rookery in downtown Oakland is not a very healthy place for these

On the Greater Sage-Grouse Lek
By Bryan Flaig I stood on a small berm along the side of a deeply rutted jeep road and turned off my headlamp. The world went dark. Sunrise was still half an hour away and a waxing moon was absorbed by thick black clouds. It was cold. Quiet. Down the east slope of Shaffer Mountain,

Bess Petty: Bird Artist
By Ilana DeBare Bess Petty was working for a company that made trade show banners when a friend asked if she had any small creations to include in a new gallery being set up by an artists’ collective. Petty, a studio art graduate of U.C. Berkeley, had been sketching birds for fun. “I thought maybe

Richmond Christmas Bird Count Takes Its Maiden Voyage
By Karyn Noel It’s dark o’clock on the first sunday of 2022. I make coffee, pack my lunch, grab my bins and head toward my car to participate in the first-ever Richmond Christmas Bird Count. As a co-compiler, the joyful anticipation of this day has been building for months. Ouch! It’s flippin’ freezing outside. No

Being a Bird Ambassador
By Margaret Hetherwick Donna Hayes, Audubon member and resident birder of San Francisco’s Bernal Heights district, remembers seeing the glowing face of inspiration when a guest to her office noticed his first bird. Hayes was a counselor at a city college at the time and was meeting with a student who had brought along their

2021 SF Christmas Bird Count Report
By David Assmann San Francisco birders have been lucky – for the past fifteen years, there has been no rain on the Christmas Bird Count, and conditions have been mostly sunny, with a rare bit of fog. The December 28, 2021 count, however, was cold and cloudy, with light rain at various points throughout the

Oakland CBC: From Fog to UFO’s
By Ryan Nakano and Viviana Wolinsky The fog is thick. The air, brisk. A small group of “early birders” strike out before the sun has time to show its face. It’s barely 5 a.m., and Dave Quady shines his flashlight after sensing a movement in the trees at the end of a side street near