Events
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Nature’s Best Hope
CA, United StatesPresentor: Doug Tallamy
Wednesday January 11, 2023
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Click HERE on the night of the program to join this Speaker Series - Passcode: 844579 ** Please note this is a direct link to the webinar, and you will be able to join the meeting at 7 PM on January 11th. It will not work before then.Recent headlines about global insect declines and three billion fewer birds in North America are a bleak reality check about how ineffective our current landscape designs have been at sustaining the plants and animals that sustain us. To create landscapes that enhance local ecosystems rather than degrade them, we must 1 remove the invasives on our property and 2) add the native plant communities that sustain food webs, sequester carbon, maintain diverse native bee communities, and manage our watersheds. If we do this in half of the area now in lawn, we can create Homegrown National Park, a 20 million acre network of viable habitats that will provide vital corridors connecting the few natural areas that remain. This approach to conservation empowers everyone to play a significant role in the future of the natural world.
Doug Tallamy is the T. A. Baker Professor of Agriculture in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, where he has authored 106 research publications and has taught insect related courses for 41 years. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities. His books include Bringing Nature Home, The Living Landscape, co-authored with Rick Darke, Nature's Best Hope, a New York Times Best Seller, The Nature of Oaks, winner of the American Horticultural Society’s 2022 book award. In 2021 he co-founded Homegrown National Park with Michelle Alfandari. His awards include recognition from The Garden Writers Association, Audubon, The National Wildlife Federation, Allegheny College, The Garden Club of America and The American Horticultural Association.
Tonight’s program is a Zoom presentation of Golden Gate Audubon Society, co-sponsored by Marin Audubon Society and other Bay Area Audubon chapters. The direct link to the program is below. No registration is required.
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Hamilton Wetlands
CA, United StatesTuesday, January 24, 2023
10 AM to 2 PM
Birding with Daniel Edelstein
Register HERE for this field tripRegistration opens January 14 at 8 AM.. Trip limit is 15 participants. No drop-ins, please.
We’ll pursue sightings of visiting shorebird, duck, gull, and songbird species for this area, including uncommon to rare species such as Lesser Yellowlegs, Western Snowy Plover, Glaucous Gull, Lesser Scaup, Barrow’s Goldeneye, Eurasian/Common Green-winged Teal, and Redhead.
Feel free to pack a lunch and beverage. Spotting scope recommended, but not essential.
Daniel is a long-time Avian Biologist, Birding Guide, and college birding instructor (WarblerWatch.com).
Directions: From US-101N, take exit 458, take right fork to continue on Nave Dr. Make a right on Main Gate Road, continue onto Palm Drive, right onto Hangar Ave, continue to South Hamilton Park, near the end of the road. Parking is available in the Park’s parking lot. Meet at the Hamilton Wetlands trailhead, near the South Hamilton Park playground.
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The Ponds at Las Gallinas Sanitary District (LGVSD) – San Rafael
CA, United StatesThursday, February 2, 2023
8:30 to 11:30 AM
Birding with Sande and Bob ChilversAll participants are welcome to join this trip. No registration required.
Beginning birders are especially welcome on the first Thursday of each month for a leisurely walk around the Las Gallinas ponds. Join our friendly leaders as we search for waterfowl, waders, songbirds, raptors, and shorebirds.
Bird enthusiasts of all levels help each other to find and identify the birds, and there are usually several experienced birders to assist. You don’t even have to arrive on time because we spend the first 30 to 60 minutes studying the birds around the first pond and the group is easy to find. Heavy rain cancels.
DIRECTIONS: From Hwy 101, exit at Smith Ranch Rd. Drive east on Smith Ranch Rd toward McInnis Park. Turn left immediately after crossing the railroad tracks and drive about 0.5 mile through the LGVSD gates and into the parking lot at the end of the road. Meet the group by the bridge just past the parking lot. There is an outhouse in the parking area for public use.
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Birding in Marin – Sausalito and Tiburon
CA, United StatesSeason 8, Trip 2
Saturday, February 4, 2023
8:30 AM to mid afternoon
Birding with Jim White and Bob BattaginRegister HERE for this field trip
Registration opens Wednesday, January 25 at 8 AM. Trip limit is 15 fully vaccinated participants. No drop-ins, please.
We are going to explore the bay from the Sausalito waterfront to the Golden Gate and Richardson’s Bay around to Strawberry Point and on to Blacky’s pasture in Tiburon. Many ducks, loons and grebes winter on the bay waters and we may compare looks at similar species like Eared and Horned or Clark’s and Western Grebes, of Red-throated, Pacific and Common Loons or Greater and Lesser Scaup. We are likely to find some shorebirds too, perhaps a Spotted Sandpiper or a rather rare Wandering Tattler.
Herring runs happen around this time of year and if we are lucky they will still be numerous. Herring deposit large numbers of eggs on eelgrass, which water birds, especially gulls, love to feast on. Although the roe, are fancied by some diners and there is a purse seining fleet hungry for profit, the Department of Fish and Wildlife is trying to maintain a sustainable catch. Last year near this time I think that 10 species of gulls were located. So brush up on your gull IDs and join Bob and I along the shore.
DIRECTIONS: Meet at the east end of Harbor Drive. Handicap Accessible. We will park where the birding is close, near level and smooth. Thanks to enlightened development planning, Harbor Drive and the rather posh Strawberry spit have fine public shoreline paths.
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Winter Birds of the Delta – Boat Trip
CA, United StatesBirding with David Wimpfheimer
Sunday, February 5th, 2023
Boat departs at 9 AM. Plan to arrive early!
Register HERE for this field trip. Please see below for important registration information.The trip costs $135. Limited to 25 people. Registration for this trip opens January 8th at 8AM. Tickets may be cancelled until February 2 at 12 noon. Cancellations will be refunded MINUS the TicketBud service charges.
If tickets aren’t available, you may sign up for the waitlist by clicking the "Contact Organizer" prompt on Ticketbud and leaving your name and phone number.
This very popular trip is being held the first weekend in Feb on Sunday Feb 5. We’ll depart from the Antioch Marina at 9AM and enter the San Joaquin River, keeping an eye out for overwintering birds and any marine (or other) animals that happen to show up. As we head east, we enter a number of the smaller sloughs and waterways with views out over the flooded agricultural fields that provide a refuge for flocks that nest in the north but winter here.
Along with the flocks of snow geese, white fronted geese and Tundra swans, numerous ducks, shorebirds, and raptors are usually spotted. Well known birder and naturalist David Wimpfheimer will provide commentary and Ronn Patterson (captain and naturalist) will fill in bits about the history of the delta as we transit this altered but still viable ecosystem.
Coffee, tea, hot chocolate is provided, bring lunch and snacks. Bad weather can cancel as with any winter trip. Light rain will not cancel.
Ticket holders will receive directions to the Antioch Marina, where the trip begins and ends, and other instructions, approximately one week prior to the trip.
Inclement weather will reschedule the trip to Sunday, February 19.
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A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds
CA, United StatesThursday February 16th, 2023
Start Time: 6:00 PM
Speaker: Scott Weidensaul
This program is a Zoom presentation of Golden Gate Audubon Society, co-sponsored by Marin Audubon Society and others.
Please use THIS LINK the night of the Speaker Series. Password: 066785Scientists continue to make astounding discoveries about the navigational and physiological feats that enable migratory birds to cross immense oceans, fly above the highest mountains, go weeks without sleep or remain in unbroken flight for months at a stretch. Scott Weidensaul, author of A World on the Wing (2021), takes us around the globe -- to the shores of the Yellow Sea in China, and the remote mountains of northeastern India where tribal villages saved the greatest gathering of falcons on the planet, to learn how people are fighting to understand and save the world's great bird migrations.
Scott Weidensaul's field research focuses on bird migration. He is a co-director of Project Owlnet, studying owl migration, and is a founder of the Critical Connections project, which is tracking the migration of birds that breed on National Park lands in Alaska. He co-founded the Northeast Motus Collaboration, which is creating a network of telemetry receivers to track the movements of bats, insects and small birds.
Image: Shorebirds swarm the mudflats of the Yellow Sea in China, one of the most endangered migratory hotspots on the globe.
Photo by: Scott Weidensaul -
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The Ponds at Las Gallinas Sanitary District (LGVSD) – San Rafael
CA, United StatesThursday, March 2, 2023
8:30 to 11:30 AM
Birding with Sande and Bob ChilversAll participants are welcome to join this trip. No registration required.
Beginning birders are especially welcome on the first Thursday of each month for a leisurely walk around the Las Gallinas ponds. Join our friendly leaders as we search for waterfowl, waders, songbirds, raptors, and shorebirds.
Bird enthusiasts of all levels help each other to find and identify the birds, and there are usually several experienced birders to assist. You don’t even have to arrive on time because we spend the first 30 to 60 minutes studying the birds around the first pond and the group is easy to find. Heavy rain cancels.
DIRECTIONS: From Hwy 101, exit at Smith Ranch Rd. Drive east on Smith Ranch Rd toward McInnis Park. Turn left immediately after crossing the railroad tracks and drive about 0.5 mile through the LGVSD gates and into the parking lot at the end of the road. Meet the group by the bridge just past the parking lot. There is an outhouse in the parking area for public use.
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Birding in Marin – Mt Tam and Corte Madera Marshes
CA, United StatesBirding in Marin, Season 8 - Trip 3
Saturday, March 4, 2023
8:30 AM to mid-afternoon
Birding with Jim White and Bob BattaginCLICK HERE to sign up for this field trip
Registration opens Wednesday, February 22 at 8 AM. Trip limit is 15 fully vaccinated participants. No drop-ins, please.
Mount Tamalpais, rising like an icon above Marin, hosts some birds uncommonly seen in the rest of the county such as Pileated Woodpecker, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Purple Finch, Red Crossbill, and in the winter, 1 or 2 Townsend’s Solitaire.
About twenty years ago our friend Dave MacKenzie discovered a TOSO feeding on mistletoe berries in some Sargent Cypress trees along the trail to Barth’s retreat and the bird or its children have returned every year since! But the trail, built by the CCC, (California Conservation Corp), back in the 1930s has not withstood the test of time quite as well. So, if you are up for a vigorous though short (3.5 miles) hike, join us to see what we can find.
After our lunch break back at Rock Springs with fine picnic tables and a restroom, we intend to drive down to sea level to look at the Corte Madera marshes. This area is very birdy, so depending on the tidal height, we expect to see a lot of birds there. Wintering shorebirds are gearing up for the return to their arctic nesting grounds, so we may be able to see how Black-bellied Plovers got their name. As the shorebirds molt into their breeding plumage, if we are diligent, we might even be able to tell the two Dowitcher species apart.
DIRECTIONS: Meet at Rock Springs at 8:30 a.m. From Hwy 1 in Stinson Beach or up 3.3 miles from Tam Junction, take Panoramic Dr to its crest then go uphill 1 mile on Pantoll Rd to the Rock Springs parking lot.
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Rodeo Lagoon – Marin Headlands
CA, United StatesWednesday, March 8, 2023
7:30 AM to noon ** Please note this field trip starts at 7:30 AM not 8:00 AM
Birding with William Legge & David WiechersCLICK HERE to sign up for this field trip
Registration opens February 26 at 8:00 AM. Trip limit is 15. No drop-ins. please.
With early spring migration underway will be looking out for migrant wildfowl, grebes, loons, gulls, and passerines. As usual, the weather will dictate our focus with onshore northwest winds ideal for spring sea watches, while offshore easterly winds promise a good selection of passerine migrants. Join us for a Sea Watch at 7:30 AM or arrive later at 8:30 AM for a circuit of the lagoon.
DIRECTIONS: Head south on Hwy 101 and take the last Sausalito exit just before the Golden Gate Bridge. At the exit stop sign, turn right and go under the freeway, then follow the road down to the left. Within
300 feet turn left at the sign to the Marin Headlands; this is the only available left turn before you begin the descent into Sausalito. You should see the tunnel with the five-minute signal light. Proceed through the tunnel on Bunker Road to the Rodeo Lagoon Parking Lot at the end and meet by the bridge over the channel to the beach.
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Bay Area Mountain Lions – What We Know about Them and How They Fit into the Larger Statewide Population
CA, United StatesThursday March 9, 2023
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Speaker: Winston Vickers
Register HERE for this Speaker SeriesMountain Lions in California are fragmented into subpopulations by roads and development. The Bay Area populations to the north and south of San Francisco are separated from each other and are separated from others further south and east by roads, development, and agriculture. Those to the north are affected by increasing road traffic, agricultural conversions for the wine industry, and other factors. Dr. Vickers will discuss the state of current knowledge, legal status, and ongoing research and mitigation efforts that are focused on these populations.
Dr. Winston Vickers is a wildlife research veterinarian with the University of California-Davis Wildlife Health Center (WHC). He has been studying mountain lions and other wildlife in California for 20 years and directs the WHC’s California mountain lion study. He collaborates widely with other mountain lion researchers, as well as collaborating on studies involving bobcats, wolves, Channel Island foxes, Santa Cruz Island scrub jays, and waterfowl. He has also worked on oil spill response with the Oiled Wildlife Care Network at UC Davis.
Photo by: Winston Vickers