Wingbeat Blog

This summer, I gathered my courage to do something completely different and flew to the United States. My main goal was to improve my English, but because I have always been passionate about nature, I also looked for an association or organization where I could volunteer so I could deepen my knowledge in biology while practicing my English.

Thanks to the advice of Dr. David Ainley, I had the amazing opportunity to volunteer at the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory (SFBBO). While there this summer, I worked on ​different projects such as Snowy Plovers with Plover Program Director Ben Pearl and bird banding with Landbird Program … 

​This spring and summer I have been on a mission to find Swainson’s Hawks in the Bay Area. While I have always enjoyed watching birds, especially water birds and passerines, I only recently became acquainted with hawk species in a raptor class offered at De Anza College. It was in that class that I learned about and first observed a Swainson’s Hawk.

When our class went out to look at raptors in Coyote Valley, we found a male Swainson’s Hawk perched atop a tall cedar tree. Our instructor, Ryan Phillips, said he was likely guarding a nest nearby. While we were there, a Cooper’s Hawk ventured into the nesting area. Sure enough, the Swainson’s Hawk immediately launched …

​Anyone who has sat with a child in the lap and a book like Where’s Waldo in hand knows the pleasure of sharing a seek-and-find game. In Bird Watch, Christie Matheson brings this pleasure to birders, with the addition of a ten-to-one countdown. Gentle, elegant illustrations in watercolor and collage provide a game of “find the bird” for the very young. “If you look closely, you just might find eight sparrows hiding near the ground.” Parents may also be challenged to find some of the hidden targets, but there’s plenty to look at and enjoy.  

​Enormous thanks to SFBBO, POST and the Santa Clara Library for their large-screen showing in April of Chris Jordan’s film, “Albatross.”  This amazing film (definitely not for young children) is one of the most beautiful art films and horrifying scientific documentaries I’ve ever seen.  It is available free for viewing online. Anyone who uses plastic, eats fish, loves birds or cares about the environment should see it.

​A year ago, I wrote briefly about Caren Loebel-Fried’s A Perfect Day for an Albatross (Cornell Lab Publishing Group, 2017), a picture book for young children that traces the life cycle of the Laysan …

​As the rain stops and it begins to look like spring again, the Coyote Creek Field Station will take advantage of the sunny days and continue banding birds. The Coyote Creek Field Station would not be the same without volunteers like Gerry Ellis. A lifelong birder, Gerry discovered CCFS decades ago through an article in the paper advertising bird banding training. He came for a few classes and stayed for years. Gerry has been an asset to SFBBO, not only as a bird bander but as a humble caretaker of the field station. 

Ulistac Natural Area is not as quiet as one would expect on a Saturday morning. The sound of rushing cars is replaced by the twitter of birds as I move farther towards the park’s interior. I made this trip to the meandering park in Santa Clara because I wanted to see one of the eBird birding hotspots mentioned in a recent data analysis by SFBBO volunteer Chris Johnson. The results of his analysis showed that the number of eBird checklists a site has can explain much of the variation in species number between birding locations. 

​Johnson used data from eBird to find the top birding locations …

​Are there Guinness Book of World Records collectors in your family? Are there poets, or poetry enthusiasts? Just in time for National Poetry Month, I discovered this highly unusual collection of poems, drawings, and superlatives about the bird world.  Which bird has the longest toes? The most feathers? The most accurate hearing? The most gruesome means of collecting prey? In Superlative Birds, Leslie Bulion as researched them all, creating verses that introduce birds both familiar and strange. 

​Each double-page spread contains a poem and, in smaller …

​For the past three years, I’ve been teaching an Urban Ecology class at RFK Community Schools in the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles. K-Town has one of the lowest percentages of tree cover in the city, and the school campus, built only nine years ago, is lined with concrete. In spite of these challenges–or maybe because of them–there is so much for students to observe and learn. On our last trip outside, we saw a Western Gull rip apart a discarded sandwich. Near the landscaped entrance to campus, house sparrows were hopping about looking for food. One student shouted, “A hawk!” and sure enough, a red-tailed hawk was soaring overhead. Another student informed the class of ​the location of its nest on the other side of the softball field.

​Durante los últimos tres años, he enseñado una clase de Ecología Urbana en las Escuelas Comunitarias RFK en el barrio de Koreatown en Los Ángeles. K-Town tiene uno de los porcentajes más bajos de cubierta de árbol en la ciudad, y el campus de la escuela, construido hace solo nueve años, está revestido de concreto. A pesar de estos desafíos, o tal vez debido a ellos, hay tanto que los estudiantes pueden observar y aprender. En nuestro último viaje afuera, vimos a una gaviota occidental comiendo un sándwich desechado. ​Cerca de la entrada ajardinada al campus, los gorriones hacían brincos buscando comida.Un estudiante gritó: “¡Un halcón!” Y, efectivamente, un halcón de cola roja se elevaba por encima. Otro estudiante informó a la clase la ubicación ​de su nido en el otro lado del campo de softball.

​The 2018 breeding season was an eventful one for Snowy Plovers here in the South San Francisco Bay. SFBBO staff faced cold and drizzly mornings to start the season, swarms of mosquitoes and triple digit temperatures in the middle of the summer, and long days in the field throughout. Our hard work paid off, as we monitored 269 nests in 22 ponds spread throughout the South Bay, with 79% of all nests found at Eden Landing. ​Pond E14, where we have invested a large amount of time and resources in recent years monitoring the large oyster shell enhancement, ​…