Hey East Bay friends! As is abundantly obvious on any trip to our shorelines, it's peak shorebird season right now! That means rarities mixed in with the big flocks, but it also means some subtle iden

Here's an eBird checklist with (bad but distinctive) photos of today's Alameda Red-necked Stint: https://ebird.org/checklist/S91801142. I'm guessing some people might be trying for this bird tomorrow.

Already posted to eBird, but this afternoon I was happy to find a big flock of 200+ peeps at Alameda South Shore (south of Elsie Roemer bird sanctuary), an area that’d been almost empty of shorebirds

It effects mudflats far away because the shorebirds that used to forage on those mudflats returned to roost at Frank's Dump with every high tide. These birds can fly very fast and commute long distanc

2021 will go down as a woeful year in the history of East Bay birding. The loss of Frank's Dump as a shorebird roosting site is causing knock-on effects all up and down the East Bay shoreline, with sh

Thanks for the info. It is most unfortunate that the structure was vandalized and that the nests failed. But if the nests have all failed, can’t the water be let in again for the rest of the summer/fa

Sorry, that was a little rash. Come to think of it, I would say that the water should be let back in after plover season. If not sooner. The fact that migrant shorebirds in huge numbers used this loca

Thanks Aaron, that's good to know. It never occurred to me that it might be a Snowy Plover thing. The next question is: Will Frank's Dump being dry actually cause population losses for the migrant sho

Maybe the birds still used the site in past dry years, but not anymore. Today they definitely were not roosting there. The only shorebirds in the entire Dump were a few Snowy and Semi Plovers. I guess

Sadly, it looks like the East Bay’s flagship shorebirding destination is no more. On my first targeted shorebird outing of the season this evening, I found Frank’s Dump at Hayward Shoreline to be most

Has there been any research on the impacts of cloud seeding on migratory birds? Silver iodide cloud seeding has been done in the U.S. West for decades, but has increased in 2020-21 due to extreme drou

I think this may be a Franklin's Gull. The back appears too dark grey for Bonaparte's (or Black-headed). It's very hard to make anything out of the face pattern, but from what little I can see, it doe

Due to COVID-19 and fires, apparently less than 150 public parks remain open in the greater Bay Area. We all know that all public land in San Mateo County is closed until further notice, as is Pt. Rey

I would disagree with the bit about "freer" days ahead, and recommend that birders should not keep saying things like this in online forums, which encourages false hopes. The reality is that coronavir

Yes. That’s a beautiful example of Red-napedX-breasted Sapsucker. More obviously hybrid than many of the birds that get called hybrids, some of which are very close to pure Red-breasted. This could be

So it looks like, under the new statewide Stay Home order, that birding is now not permitted in California. The order states that California residents must stay home except to “get food, care for a re

Again... outdoor recreation is specifically allowed according to the official Alameda Co. shelter in place order, and is presumably the same in other counties. So birding is one of the few things that

Hey everyone. According to signage, Bethany Reservoir will be closed for construction for the next two years, from May 2020 until at least Nov 2021. These projects tend to take much longer than planne

I completely agree with this... I have always thought the East Bay birding community is stunted because of the draconian rules on EBB-Sightings. For example, the ban on posting events has been what’s

Lately I've been trying to actually find sapsuckers by looking for them; seemingly something not many birders do. I've been poking around groves of pepper trees in the South and East Bays, and it's a