Bay Area Bird Blog

Scott Artis, who has done a remarkable job monitoring and advocating for burrowing owls that are being evicted for a house construction project, reports today that California Department of Fish and Game is issuing a “cease and desist order” for the project. The developers are required to remove all of the “one-way doors” that had been installed on the owl burrows so that owls could leave but not return. This is fantastic news! I assume — Scott didn’t say in his email — that this action is prompted by the fact that fumigation to kill ground squirrels was, illegally, taking place even though burrowing owls are still on the site. If that’s the case then the developer will work quickly to come up with a new approach, but at least this buys some time for legal action. At this point it’s probably too late to stop the development, but at the least the developers should have to provide mitigation for removing burrowing owl habitat.

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A couple of months ago, I got an email from a marketer asking if I would like a copy of the book whose title is given in this post’s title. I said Sure, but (1) I don’t post much to this blog anymore, and (2) I wouldn’t guarantee to review the book and (2b) even if I did review it, I might not like it!

Well, here I am…I finally read the book, and it’s pretty good. I think it’s intended to be read to a child by his/her parents, or to be read by a child maybe in the 8-11 range. It’s about 100 pages, with a couple of dozen photos and with a fairly large font and double-spaced. 26 chapters in 100 pages…just takes a few minutes to get through each one, for an adult reader.

The book chronicles a season in the life of some osprey parents and their kids. Chapters are “About ospreys”, “Finding a place to call home”, “Finding a mate,” and so on. A sample of the writing: “All Olive could do was watch over the eggs and wait. Her babies had to hatch themselves with no help, and she knew they would come out of their shells when they were ready. It was a warm summer day when the first egg hatched. When the babies hatch, they weigh only two ounces and are one or two inches long. That is about the size of your mom’s thumb. That is very tiny for a bird that will grow so big.”

I don’t have kids and I’m not the intended audience, so it’s a bit hard for me to judge whether this book will interest most children. At least I think it would be good for children who have any interest in ospreys or who get to see them regularly. If you live someplace you can see osprey regularly (or, indeed, any other bird of prey) your kids might really like this. But for what I think of as the average soccer-playing, TV-watching, Wii-playing youngster, I dunno…I don’t think this will necessarily engage their imagination or interest. Still, for that niche market of kids-who-watch-raptors, I think this is a good choice.

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This is really sad.  The City of Berkeley, and the Golden Gate Audubon Society, have been working really hard to preserve their tiny remaining population of burrowing owls (three in Cesar Chavez Park, two in the adjacent Eastshore State Park).  At the same time, over in Antioch, a developer is “evicting” burrowing owls (by installing one-way, outward-only gates on their burrows) in preparation to fumigating to kill all of the ground squirrels there, to make way for a big housing development.  Read more about it at “the birder’s report”.  At the least, there should be some kind of required mitigation to try to compensate for the loss of habitat for these birds, which are a “species of special concern” of the State of California because of rapid population decline. Please write to John McCamman the director of the California Department of Fish and Game, with a cc to Regional Director Chuck Armor askbdr@dfg.ca.gov.  At this point they are not going to stop the project but it may not be too late for them to require mitigations; also, it is very important that they know that people out here in the real world notice and care when they drop the ball like this.

[Note added 1/5/09: I just got a request from the Department of Fish and Game, to remove the name and contact information of the DFG’s local representative, Susan Gilmore.  As you can see here, I have removed the contact info but not the name; people who make important decisions should be accountable for them. But there’s no point overwhelming her with messages if she’s not going to read them or is not supposed to read or respond to them, and I assume that’s the case here.]

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If you haven’t seen a burrowing owl, get yourself down to Cesar Chavez Park in Berkeley. They are really cool.  There are three owls in the park this winter, and another three in the “Berkeley Meadow” nearby, which is part of Eastshore State Park. Golden Gate Audubon Society has a docents program at the park, so if you’re lucky there will be someone there to point out the owls, show them to you through binoculars or a spotting scope, and tell you about them.  Just follow the path around the perimeter of the park until you get to the orange fence that protects the owls from roaming dogs.  

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From The Onion: God…released an estimated 14 million first-run models into the important bird markets of North America, Australia, and Eurasia. “This new bird has it all: slicker wings, a more streamlined beak, better-than-ever capacity for beautiful song. Plus, all of the grace and majesty you’ve come to expect from the Eternal Creator of Life Itself.”

“The bird is back,” God continued, His booming voice parting the very heavens. “And baby, it’s never looked better.”

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An article today in the NY Times (free signup needed) pleads with people to keep their cats indoors, to save migratory birds and other wildlife and to keep the cats healthier. Predictably, many people are posting comments that say that cats preying on birds is “natural.” It isn’t. The density of predators — cats and dogs — in cities and suburbs is dozens or hundreds of times higher than it would be if we didn’t subsidize the predators.

My wife and I have four cats, which puts us well into the realm of “eccentric cat lover.”  (Three is really our natural level, I think, but when we went to pick up #3 at the pound, we felt so sorry for #4, we took her too).  Believe me, this is a true cat-lover saying: keep your cats inside.  Keys are (1) have more than one cat, so they interact with each other to avoid being bored, (2) live up to your responsibility to play with your cats a lot, and (3) change their environment occasionally to keep things interesting (e.g. get a new cat tree, or install shelves at ceiling level so they can prowl around up there).  If you put as much effort into your cats every week as many dog owners do every day, they’ll do great.

By the way, check out the cool thing we built for our cats, and the unexpected way one of the cats uses it.

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This is starting to become a “dog bites man” story, so commonplace that it’s hardly worth mentioning. Except it just keeps getting worse and worse. The Klamath River, near the California-Oregon border, is almost completely dry, as an article in the SF Chronicle discusses. Partly, it’s just a dry year. But also, farmers use most of the Klamath’s water for crops. I’m all for crops — hey, I eat food every single day! — but I think that if you’re draining a river of literally all of its water, you’re going to far. It’s pretty amazing to see what the farmers up there think, though — you can do an online search and find plenty of…well, I would call them wackos, but I guess if you live up there it’s normal to you.

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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Martinez and environs are a great place to spend a day or two, if you’re a nature-lover.  Take your bikes (we used Amtrak from Berkeley, only $10 per person each way and you get great views of North Richmond and Point Pinole that you can’t get from the car).  and enjoy a lovely ride from Martinez out to Port Costa and back, along a beautiful road with no cars. (Or hike in the adjacent hills).  Return to Martinez and head out to the small but worth-a-visit Muir National Historic Site. Then do a hike in the hills from the nearby trailhead.  Head back into downtown Martinez for a snack, then do some birding at the wetlands where Alhambra Creek meets the bay.  Have an early dinner, finishing just before dark so you can head over to the beaver dam — they have beavers right in the middle of town! — and look for the beavers, and the muskrat, and the green heron that is always around, and the mink and otter that occasionally come through.  Afterwards, head just down the street to Armando’s for some music until you start to get tired. Then head over to Benicia (if you’re car-free, I recommend the local Martinez Taxi service, which has a van that you can put two bikes into, as we proved this weekend) and stay at one of Benicia’s charming hotels or B&B’s.  Get up early in the morning, bike two miles over to Benicia State Park and bird the wetlands there, then head back for breakfast.  Afterwards, head on home, or bike back to Martinez on the brand-spankin’-new Benica-Martinez bike path and catch the train back to your destination.  Put it all together, and you have a terrific 24-hour or 48-hour getaway.

The description above isn’t _quite_ how we did it this past weekend — for example, it was the hottest weekend of the year, so we swapped out some of the outdoor activities in favor of a massage by Joyce Cid (excellent).  But trust me, you can do a great weekend of outdoor activities in and around Martinez.

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