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SONOMA BIRDING NEWS

Sonma Valley & Surrounds -Birding hot spots mapped out

By Emily Charrier-Botts INDEX-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER - August 9, 2010

Birding just got easier in Sonoma Valley thanks to the release of a collection of trail maps that will take nature enthusiasts to all of the best birding spots within 30 minutes of the Plaza.

"There's really no place that tells you where to bird. I'm trying to put it all in one place. Honestly, no one has done this and I wanted to do it for us here in the Valley," said Tom Rusert, who founded SonomaBirding.org with partner Darren Peterie. The trail maps can be found on the group's website.

"You'd have to go to about 25 Google sites to even know where these places are," Rusert said.

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The Little Owls That Live Underground

Burrowing owls can thrive amid agricultural development and urbanization—so why are they imperiled?

It’s almost midnight and a lone white pickup truck sits atop a grassy hill on a remote tract of government land near Dublin, California, that is used as a military training base. In the driver’s seat, biologist Jack Barclay hunkers down over a night-vision scope that amplifies light 30,000 times. Barclay is watching two quarter-size pieces of glowing reflective tape that mark a trap he has concealed in low weeds 100 yards away. He has brought a truckload of equipment to this site to band some of its few remaining burrowing owls.

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - (9/09) In one fell swoop, the changes in bird habitats and behavior between now and 2070 will equal the evolutionary and adaptive shifts that normally occur over tens of thousands of years, according to researchers with PRBO, also known as the Point Reyes Bird Observatory.
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Spotted Owl News

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced today that the agency will overturn the Bush Administration's flawed critical habitat and recovery plan for the Northern Spotted Owl. The Secretary also announced that the Bureau of Land Management will withdraw a controversial Bush Administration logging plan affecting federal forests in Oregon. The plan ignored the advice of federal and independent scientists. This is a great first step to restoring protections for the Spotted Owl, Marbled Murrelet and other threatened species in the Pacific Northwest.

Birdseed Types What is Best!

By BWD editor Bill Thompson, III
Just like people, birds have certain food preferences. The good news for you is that people have been feeding birds for many decades, so you get the benefit of all that trial-and-error experimentation. These days, we, the bird-feeding public, already know what foods birds prefer. At the feeders this means seeds.

But which seeds are the best? In a nutshell, sunflower seed. So if you are just starting out in feeding, I suggest you buy some black-oil sunflower seed at a local hardware store, feed store, specialty bird store, or even at a major retail chain store.

There is a vast array of other foods you can offer birds besides birdseed. To view a few of the most commonly offered non-seed items that birds enjoy click here.

Mapping The Sonoma Plaza Trees

Celebrating Sonoma's Good Nature!
By Emily Charrier-Botts

The Sonoma Plaza is graced with 60 different types of trees, not to mention the many species of birds that make those trees home. Valley birder Tom Rusert worked with City Parks Supervisor Dave Chavoya and representatives of the Sonoma Valley Visitors Bureau to create a guide highlighting all of the ecological wonders of the Plaza that will help residents and visitors spot the difference between a Canary Island Palm and a California Fan Palm tree.
Called “Celebrate Sonoma’s Good Nature,” the brochure and map will be available at the visitors bureau in coming weeks, allowing the community to gain a better understanding of the natural beauty of California’s largest town square.

Is the American Kestrel Declining?

The Case of the American Kestrel Ernesto Ruelas Inzunza - The answer is a sound yes. Available data on kestrel populations comes from several different data sources: migration counts, the Breeding Bird Survey (BBS), Christmas Bird Count (CBC), and also from regional nest box programs. Because the American Kestrel is a partial migrant, a species whose winter range largely overlaps its breeding range and which also falls largely within the well-sampled area of southern Canada and the United States, using CBC data to support these statements has considerable value.

Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer
People may think that San Francisco's avian population is limited to overindulged seagulls and raggedy pigeons. Not so. Despite 150 years of development in the city, hundreds of species come here - most of them to the spots they inhabited before the Gold Rush. Birders in San Francisco over the past century have compiled a list of 396 species, nearly half the birds in North America. San Francisco is so feathered that it placed second in the America's Birdiest City contest with 178 species counted on one weekend - behind Dauphin Island, Ala., a town on a barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico that is the site of five bird sanctuaries. What makes the city's 49 square miles such a paradise for birds is its position on the Pacific Flyway, a major migratory route. Traveling birds rest and feed here, and the Mediterranean climate is welcoming to the residents who stay year round. The assortment of ecosystems - bluffs and beaches, saltwater tidal marsh, mudflats and fresh creeks - provide haven habitat for waterfowl, seabirds, shorebirds and song birds.

Experts identify molecule that reacts to magnetic field
Rick Weiss, Washington Post

Flying with a chemical compass? Four decades after scientists showed that migratory birds use Earth's magnetic field to orient themselves during their seasonal journeys, researchers have at last found a molecular mechanism that may explain how they do it. If the hypothesis is true, the planet's magnetic field lines - which arch around Earth from north to south - may be plainly visible to birds, like the dashed line in the middle of a road.

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