Get Ready for the 2020 Christmas Bird Count!

Get Ready for the 2020 Christmas Bird Count!

 

Golden Gate Bird Alliance is pleased to announce that our Christmas Bird Counts will take place this December. GGBA traditionally sponsors two counts — one centered around Oakland and one centered around San Francisco.

Spend a fun day outdoors with a team counting individual birds and species, and contributing to our understanding of bird populations. Both beginners and experienced birders welcome.

Due to Covid-19 restrictions, this year’s teams will be much smaller in number and will require social distancing, masks, and your own scopes and equipment. Our Oakland count will take place on Sunday, December 20, 2020. The San Francisco count will take place on Tuesday, December 29, 2020. We will not host our traditional in-person dinners, but we will host a final tally count via Zoom. 

Cedar Waxwing by Stan Lupo

Registration for the 2020 counts will open in early November.

To learn more about the counts, please go to our Christmas Bird Count page by clicking here. If you’d like to register to receive Christmas Bird Count email alerts, please email our Communications Manager, Melissa, at mramos@goldengatebirdalliance.org. You can also continue to check our website for more updates. …

Updates From GGBA

Updates From GGBA

Thank you for your continued support of GGBA during this difficult year. Here are some updates to get us through the rest of 2020!

We hope you like our new website! GGBA’s Communications Manager, Melissa Ramos, has been hard at work over the past several months to bring you a refreshed, contemporary and easy to use site. Take a look around at our new content (like our Archives and Conservation sections!). We hope you’ll also enjoy the custom bird-themed artwork by Bay Area tattoo artist, Tex Buss. Are you a bird photographer? We’re looking for beautiful bird photos for our rotating cover image on our main page. Send photos to Melissa at mramos@goldengatebirdalliance.org.

Due to Covid-19 restrictions, the GGBA office remains closed to the public, however there are plenty of ways to stay connected with us! Check out our social media (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) for daily updates, articles, and beautiful bird photos. And of course, check out our website for daily updates through our news posts and blogs!

Our beloved Speaker Series event has officially been converted into an online format. If you’d like to learn more about our Speaker Series, and take a look at upcoming events, please click here. We are proud to offer our Speaker Series free of charge. Our events can accommodate up to 500 viewers.

Some of our habitat restoration events have restarted, with limitations due to county and Covid-19 rules. If you’d like to learn more about upcoming opportunities, please click here or email our Manager of Volunteer Services, Janet Carpinelli at jcarpinelli@goldengatebirdalliance.org.

We are also pleased to announce that we are planning to move forward with our annual Christmas Bird Count, pending county rules and restrictions. You can learn more about the 2020 Christmas Bird Counts by clicking here.

While we are offering tentative field trips as part of our fall/winter adult education classes, our general field trips are currently on hold until 2021. We hope to see you in the field next year. Until then, keep in touch with us on social media, stay safe, and take care! …

Cancellation of SF and Oakland 2020 Christmas Bird Counts

Cancellation of SF and Oakland 2020 Christmas Bird Counts

It is with heavy hearts that we announce that the 2020 San Francisco and Oakland Christmas Bird Counts have been cancelled due to public health orders. We are grateful to those of you who signed up for our sponsored counts. And of course, we are disappointed that we will have to wait until 2021 to join with you in the next Christmas Bird Counts.  

We are cancelling the counts this year due to the Bay Area’s newest regional stay-at-home orders, which prohibit interaction between members of different households and also has shut down many outdoor destinations. Although we did our best this year to adapt the CBCs to help ensure safety, we are cancelling the event to comply with the Bay Area’s health orders.

In the meantime, here are two online events that we’d recommend for you to participate in.

Project Feeder Watch: Go to feederwatch.org and learn how to create and contribute your report about birds that you see at your feeder. Your reports will be part of a valuable reservoir of data for conservation projects!

Auk the Vote’s Phone Banks for Georgia: The Georgia Senate run-offs determine control of the US Senate. Please join a coordinated effort by Auk the Vote!, Georgia Audubon, and the Environmental Voter Project in a series of non partisan phone banks beginning December 19th. Go to aukthevote.org for more information on how you can participate. 

We can take solace in the beautiful natural environment that surrounds us, and our continued ability to go out in the company of members of our household or just in the company of nature, to enjoy our local birds. We are also optimistic that next year we will be able to enjoy each other’s company during the count and at the celebratory post-count dinner. 

Let’s look forward to the San Francisco and Oakland CBC in 2021! Stay safe and be well.…

Online Bird Art Auction – May 17 through June 1

Online Bird Art Auction – May 17 through June 1

Bring the beauty of birds into your home—while helping artists and Bay Area wildlife—through an online auction of bird art sponsored by Golden Gate Bird Alliance. From May 17 through June 1, Golden Gate Bird Alliance is holding an online auction of nearly 50 widely varied paintings, prints, photographs, and sculptures of birds at http://goldengatebirdalliance.org/auction.

This year’s auction is an online part of Birdathon, Golden Gate Bird Alliance’s annual fundraiser to support our conservation and education work for the coming year. This year we’re excited bring you this auction in support of both the artists and Golden Gate Bird Alliance as we shelter in place at home. Auction proceeds will be split between Golden Gate Bird Alliance and the artists, in most cases on a 50/50 basis. This is the first time in Golden Gate Bird Alliance’s 103-year history that we’ve sponsored an online auction of bird art. 

The auction offers items for all tastes and budgets, from giclee prints of kingfishers and herons that open for bidding at $20, to paintings of chickadees and roadrunners valued at over $1800. Along with items for bidding, there are items for sale at fixed prices, such as bird notecards by Berkeley artist Rigel Stuhmiller.

Perhaps the most unique item is a gift pack from best-selling author Amy Tan, who is also a proficient bird artist. The  pack includes a set of bird notecards by Tan, plus autographed copies of her breakout novel, The Joy Luck Club, and her memoir, Where the Past Begins.

An exclusive collection of Amy Tan’s autographed books and bird notecards for our 2020 online bird art auction. Photo by Ilana DeBare

Another unusual item is a personal chalk art rendition of birds—made to order for the buyer’s sidewalk by artist Clay Anderson. Please check out our auction website to see the full range of art available in this unique auction.

Here’s how the auction will work:

• The auction will open on May 17, 2020 and will continue through June 1, 2020.
• To bid, you’ll be prompted to create a free account with 32Auctions (the website that hosts our auction).
• You can either bid an exact amount or by “proxy”, in which 32Auctions automatically raises your bid such that it is the lowest possible winning bid, up to your maximum bid amount.…

Nature activities for kids during Covid-19

Nature activities for kids during Covid-19

Are your kids sheltering-in-place at home because of the Covid-19 epidemic? Enjoy these fun projects to learn about birds and nature in your neighborhood, prepared by our Eco-Education team.

These activities are geared primarily towards elementary school-aged children, and incorporate STEM (science-technology-engineering-math) and language arts skills, as well as direct observations of nature and outdoor activities. They are available in English and Spanish.

In English:

So You Want to Be a Birder?

What Kind of Plant Do I Have?

How Do I Find Animals?

Follow the Garbage!

Bird Detective – explore birds in your neighborhood

Anna’s Hummingbird by Bob Gunderson

Listening Bingo  – what sounds do you hear in your neighborhood?

Hummingbird Story Packet – read and discuss an Ohlone folktale about hummingbirds

Hummingbird Math – do hummingbird hearts beat faster than yours?

Make A Hummingbird – all you need are scissors, crayons, and tape or glue

How to Help Birds – ways your family can help birds and their S.F. Bay habitat

En Español:

Bird Detective (Detective de Aves) – Spanish

Listening Bingo (Bingo de Escuchar) – Spanish

Hummingbird Math (Matemática del Colibrí)  – Spanish

How to Help Birds (Diez Maneras de Ayudar las Aves) – Spanish

Other ideas: 

Our Osprey NestCam offers live streaming views of an active Osprey nest along the Richmond shoreline. Watch with your family and talk about what you see the Ospreys doing, and why you think they’re doing it. You can also join our free Osprey chat group to ask questions and share your reactions. Our Osprey web site has free downloadable lesson plans for grades 6-12, which you may be able to simplify and adapt for younger children. (Yes, you may download these even if you’re not a teacher — just write “Covid” in the space where it asks for your school!) 

National Audubon Society offers a wide range of activities for children and families, from online bird drawing lessons to tips for observing city pigeons. See audubon.org/get-outside/activities/audubon-for-kids. 

Put up a bird feeder in your yard. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has information on how to get started. Then download the free Merlin app or go to allaboutbirds.org to identify and learn about the species you’re attracting. 

And here’s a short video about outdoor nature activities with kids by our friend Rue Mapp, founder of Outdoor Afro. This was created before the pandemic, but can help when your family is feeling housebound now.…

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