GGAS Blog

The Anatomy of a Fundraising Event
By Daryl Goldman We’re almost halfway to our goal of $20,000 for GGAS’s second online fundraiser, our Bird Art and Holiday Sale. I hope you will keep shopping and tell your friends about our fundraising sale. The sale has been extended to November 3rd! If you’d like to go directly to our sale, please

Vote!
By Pam Young, Executive Director You are the most important person in the world. Because this is the year that you decide the future of your planet. You are reading this because you love our Bay area birds, wildlife, wilderness, and all that they represent. So, please, act to protect what you love. Please.

Learn about the Artists of GGAS’s Bird Art and Holiday Sale
By Daryl Goldman The GGAS Bird Art and Holiday Gift Sale is taking place right now in our online store (click here to go to our store) and runs until 9 pm Sunday, November 1. This sale is serving as a fundraiser for GGAS as well as a way to help artists make a

Smoke, Water and Birds: 10 Hours at Sea on a Pelagic
By Elliot Janca Editor’s Note: Toward the end of September, when the skies were dense with smoke and fog, teenage birder Elliot (accompanied by his father, John) took a Pelagic tour to see as many birds as they could. This tour was part of a prize Elliot won in GGAS’s Young Birders Contest (a

Learn more about GGAS’s upcoming Bird Art and Holiday Sale!
By Daryl Goldman There were many challenges this past spring, but while sheltering in place, I found some unexpected joy: the silencing of the traffic allowed me, despite a hearing deficit, to awaken to an overwhelming dawn chorus outside my urban window. Another joy: my work on the GGAS Bird Art Auction we held in

Refuge Takes Flight
By Mark Lipman Editor’s Note: We are happy to offer GGAS members the opportunity to watch Refuge, a beautiful new film portrait of a wildlife refuge in California’s Central Valley that was recorded over the past three winters by director Mark Lipman. Mark has kindly extended free viewing for GGAS members through October 4th. This blog

Another Strong Year for Snowy Plovers at Ocean Beach and Crissy Field, As a New Overwintering Season Begins
By the Snowy Plover Monitors at National Park Service Western snowy plovers are back on Golden Gate National Recreation Area beaches! They weren’t gone for very long. These small, federally threatened shorebirds leave Golden Gate to breed each spring, and return each fall to spend the winter feasting on beach invertebrates. Between the early and

The Butterflies of Mount Sutro
By Liam O’Brien When I surveyed all the butterflies of San Francisco County in 2007 (and again in 2009) Mount Sutro was not one of my ten transect sites. I dismissed it as a horrifying example of “Sutro’s Gift” of eucalyptus from the early 1900s – a monocultural wasteland. I knew of Craig Dawson’s work

Auk the Vote! Together, We Can Get Out The Environmental Vote
By Laura Cremin and David Robinson America’s birding community has always advocated for conservation policies. Low voter turnout, however, is a huge roadblock to success. Although Americans prioritize environmental policies and climate action more than ever before, many simply do not vote. For instance, over 15 million identifiable environmentalists did not vote in the

Photographing on the Median
By Gerry Traucht Editor’s Note: Gerry offers us glimpses of what he sees at and near his home. This unique collection embodies the qualities of the Japanese poetic form, Zuihitsu. Zuihitsu is genre of Japanese literature (since adapted by many Western writers) consisting of loosely connected personal essays or fragmented ideas that typically respond

Journeying Homeward From Home
By Gerry Traucht His name is Hello. When I say, Hello, to an empty sky, a crow appears. It takes a minute or two if he’s far away. He stops by solo several times a day, flapping by a window or a door. Once in a while he brings his mate. Here he is outside

How I Came to Love Owls Even More
By Alan Krakauer I wish this was a normal spring and summer. However, if I had to pick one up-side to being forced to bird so close to home this year, it would be getting to know my local Great Horned Owls a little better. Of all the feathered denizens of Wildcat Canyon Regional Park,