GGAS BLOG
Welcome to our online blog featuring thoughtful articles on everything from birding hotspots to bird science written by members of our community.
In order to keep this blog as engaging and relevant as possible we welcome all interested contributors to pitch their article idea(s) to our communications desk at rnakano@goldengateaudubon.org. We are especially interested in publishing blog posts from writers within underrepresented communities including; Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color, LGBTQIA+ individuals and people with disabilities. For more information on contributing blog posts and the editing process visit our Blog Guideline page here.
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Bird chalk art at the Berkeley Bird Festival
By Ilana DeBare The sidewalks of U.C. Berkeley blossomed with colorful bird life on Sunday — a chalk art aviary that was part of the first-ever Berkeley Bird Festival. Golden Gate Audubon Society invited artists and nature sketchers, adults and kids, casual doodlers and “me? I can’t draw!” passersby to join in creating chalk art
Birding at the University of California Botanical Garden
By Chris Carmichael With one of the richest plant collections in the United States, the University of California Botanical Garden (UCBG) offers birders in the Bay Area a range of unique birding opportunities. Located in Strawberry Canyon in the hills above the UC Berkeley campus, the UCBG plant collections are arranged in a biogeographical manner (California,
Help Protect Our Birds in the Altamont Pass
In less than one week, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors will decide whether to approve of the Mulqueeney Ranch Wind Repowering Project despite the fact that it will unnecessarily kill large numbers of Golden Eagles, Burrowing Owls, Swainson’s Hawks, and Tricolored Blackbirds, many of which are already severely impacted by the Altamont Pass. On
Lake Merritt Docents: The Wonder of Birds
By Maureen Lahiff Ducks and waterbirds come in close toward the paved path around the lake. Gulls drop mussels on the path to crack their shells. Black-crowned Night-Herons sit motionless in the trees. For the past several years, passionate Golden Gate Audubon volunteers have helped passerby notice, understand, and appreciate these everyday moments at Lake
eBird Streaking Leads to Better Birding
By Marjorie Powell I followed the lockdown rules carefully; I went out once a week for groceries; I went birding, alone, once or twice a week. I read book after book—history, biography, fiction, emptying the shelves of books collected over the years. Then Golden Gate Audubon Society member and birding instructor Dawn Lemoine asked me
Tesla Park: A Win for Wildlife
By Ilana DeBare There are too few victories for wildlife these days, but East Bay conservationists and their legislative allies just managed to save 3,100 acres of unique habitat in the hills of southeastern Alameda County. State lawmakers and Governor Newsom agreed last week to turn the property known as Tesla Park into a permanent
MLK Jr. Regional Shoreline: Birding Hotspot
By Blake Edgar Wedged between Interstate 880 and Oakland International Airport along the eastern edge of San Leandro Bay, Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline protects a remnant of a once-extensive tidal marsh. This habitat maintains a population of endangered Ridgway’s Rails and serves many shorebirds and water birds, especially during winter migration. This area
Oysters, Climate Change, and Pier 94
By Noreen Weeden Pier 94, our habitat restoration site along San Francisco’s southeastern shoreline, is a potential oyster hotbed! No, we’re not talking about turning Pier 94 into the next Hog Island Oyster Company. These are a different kind of oysters—tiny native oysters that make better eating for wildlife than for humans, and that could
Help enforce California’s rodenticide ban
By Dan Scali A decade ago, Golden Gate Audubon Society cosponsored a Don’t Take the Bait campaign that asked San Francisco businesses and residents to voluntarily avoid selling or using the most harmful rodenticides. GGAS then went on to fight rodenticides on a larger scale, alongside other grassroots nonprofits like Raptors Are the Solution (RATS),
Bird education becomes a bird podcast
By Georgia Silvera Seamans Five years ago, I partnered with Street Lab to design a nature education project called Explore Birds, in which we presented pop-up exhibits of taxidermied birds in historically underserved New York City neighborhoods such as Chinatown. A program of Washington Square Park Eco Projects, Explore Birds aims to showcase New York’s
Re-nest Success
By Tara McIntire I had noticed a persistent Anna’s Hummingbird zipping about our yard, collecting web from all the nooks and crannies, which made me wonder if she were building a nest nearby. Sure enough, a few weeks later our neighbor mentioned there was a very agitated bird in their yard with a nest in
Birding by Ear with help from AI
By Margot Bezrutczyk I’ll probably never know what it was: the bird that sang such complex, liquid song in the thicket of bay laurel that morning on Bolinas Ridge. I tried and failed to come up with a mnemonic, resorting to simile: “It sounds like an Ewok and a robot fighting. It sounds like a