Critter News

MAY 8, 2009

San Francisco supervisors have passed a resolution supporting city restaurants that remove foie gras from their menus. California will be banning that awful stuff in about three years. Foie gras is the liver of a duck or a goose that has been specially fattened by force feeding. I just find the whole description vile and gruesome.).

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Foie Gras San Francisco Meat California 100

10,000 Birds

JULY 29, 2011

Perhaps the Giants should have stuck with Candlestick Park because AT&T Park has been beset by birds , gulls to be exact. The team is considering bringing in a falcon to drive away the unwanted visitors that pester patrons for food and drop, um, things, from above onto the heads of folks who just want to see a game.

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San Francisco Unwanted Falcons Game 157

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

In January 1971, two oil tankers collided under the Golden Gate Bridge, spilling more than 800,000 gallons of crude oil into the San Francisco Bay. Last weekend I was treated to a tour of their San Francisco Bay facility, located in Fairfield, California, by the Wildlife Center Manager, Michelle Bellizzi.

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Bird Rescue Rescue San Francisco Pelicans 239

10,000 Birds

MAY 11, 2012

We have at least 3 nesting locations here in San Francisco and that number seems to be climbing slowly. They mimic our styles of dress and mock us through forced perspective. They are good watchers. They know the rhythms of gophers. They know the rhythms of traffic. Males can get into a dance battle if territories are threatened.

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San Francisco Gophers Reptiles Hunters 255

10,000 Birds

MARCH 31, 2012

This individual was seen during a recent visit to San Francisco while I was looking for a Great Horned Owl’s nest in Golden Gate Park. All the birds seen today were males. If the females had shown, they would have been similarly marked but less vividly than the highly contrasting patterns of the males.

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San Francisco North America Owls America 250

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 9, 2014

Meanwhile, on the opposite coast, Double-crested Cormorants are interfering with plans to tear down the old Bay Bridge between Oakland and San Francisco. News Conservation Double-crested Cormorant Fire Island Piping plovers public works San Francisco' The birds nest in the span, which is being replaced by a new bridge.

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San Francisco Oakland Massachusetts United States 177

10,000 Birds

APRIL 27, 2012

I’d like to take a quick moment to address all the San Francisco Bay Area readers of 10,000 Birds. Red-tailed Hawk with dinner and a salad from behind. Prairie Falcon from behind. Red-tailed Hawk from behind-ish, more from the side.

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San Francisco Birds Falcons Ducks 247

10,000 Birds

MAY 26, 2012

This individual was seen at close quarters in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park during a recent visit. Anna’s Hummingbird typically describes a steep dive accompanied by an “explosive buzz/squeak tewk ” at the bottom of the J-shaped curl.

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San Francisco Oregon Washington California 245

10,000 Birds

MAY 16, 2024

Last week, I returned to Morelia, Mexico, my home for the past 30 years, from twelve days in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I spent my childhood and teenage years. north, is very similar to sea level, at San Mateo’s more northerly latitude of 37.77

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San Francisco California Mexico Advocacy 225

10,000 Birds

JUNE 22, 2012

A Western Meadowlark floats near San Francisco Bay. If you’re ever caught out with a short lens or the birds are just too far away, you can still get good shots that tell the wider story. Above, a Burrowing Owl near the Salton Sea. A Wilson’s Warbler in the reeds at a lake’s edge.

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San Francisco Owls Birds 218

10,000 Birds

APRIL 26, 2014

This was a family vacation and I had led my unsuspecting wife and son out onto the curving pier at Aquatic Park, overlooking San Francisco Bay, ostensibly to get a better look at Alcatraz and the bridge, but actually with half a mind to finding a Wandering Tattler. Birding Birds California San Francisco Wandering Tattler'

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San Francisco United States California Australia 165

10,000 Birds

JUNE 8, 2012

Red-tailed Hawks often hunt through dusk in San Francisco. The Foster City Shell Bar is the place for shorebirds and views of the San Mateo Bridge. Abbotts Lagoon welcomes the night and so do Burrowing Owls. Searching for Golden Gate Great Horned Owls. Varied Thrush habitat on Mount Tamalpais.

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San Francisco Tennessee Falcons Owls 218

10,000 Birds

MAY 12, 2012

San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park is rich in bird feeders and the jays find rich pickings. Though Steller’s Jay is usually associated with western coniferous forests, it can be found in many different habitats as well as town parks and gardens were they will take advantage of food left out during the winter.

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San Francisco Sparrows Ducks Birds 217

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 24, 2011

The juvenile Red-tailed Hawk in San Francisco that was observed to have a nail shot through its head was finally caught by rehabbers and is being rehabilitated. There is a $10,000 to find the person or persons responsible for this stupid and callous act so get your sleuthing shoes on!

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San Francisco 172

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 22, 2014

San Francisco aims to study and deter birdstrikes ; participants can earn “bird-friendly resident” honors. Some jerk (I’d use a stronger word, but this is a family-friendly website) in Wisconsin is shooting raptors. Birding in the Bronx? Yep, at the Dred Scott Bird Sanctuary. Another study, led by the U.S.

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San Francisco Wisconsin Sanctuary Science 212

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 5, 2011

The Red-tailed Hawk that was found in San Francisco with a nail through its head has been successfully rehabilitated and released. Hat-tip to Seagull Steve.

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San Francisco 162

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 31, 2011

Or so says a study by San Francisco State researchers using data collected from over forty years of measurements taken during bird banding. Here’s hoping that this means that some birds, at least, might be able to adapt as climate change continues.

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San Francisco Collecting Birds Research 162

10,000 Birds

JULY 25, 2011

Or how he once rode a pair of Brown Pelicans from San Francisco to Cape May because he heard Pete Dunne needed some help identifying raptors. Tales like how he’s the only one with all forty-seven Red Crossbill species already figured out and checked off his life list. Or how…well, you get the idea.

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San Francisco Pelicans Birds Woodpeckers 245

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 7, 2013

The individuals above were seen at the top of the tide, pushed hard against the shore of San Francisco Bay. Below are birds from a small flock which were picking along the rocks by the AT&T Park, The San Francisco Giants Stadium, at the bottom of Third Street.

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San Francisco Sea Lions Lions California 165

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 30, 2012

Recently a Fork-tailed Flycatcher was reported from a park in San Francisco, a long ways away from its home in Central and South America. Pin-tailed Whydah at Sutro Heights Park, San Francisco, CA. Fork-tailed Flycatcher is a vagrant that ABA Area birders unashamedly lust for.

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San Francisco San Diego Connecticut South America 187

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 21, 2015

At the Northwest corner of San Francisco is Point Lobos. Here’s one last look at the adult Heermann’s Gull landing on the beach in San Francisco. Just South of Point Lobos is Sutro Baths and the Cliff House Restaurant overlooking the Pacific Ocean. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUBX_tlHySc. v=FUBX_tlHySc.

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San Francisco North America Seals Sanctuary 162

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 18, 2011

(Check out Part 1 here) The city can be a tough place to make a living but San Francisco offers raptors a number of parks, small and large, for them to thrive in. But the parks have edges, hard edges, and the hawks have to handle the transitions. Above, Patch the Red-tailed Hawk perches on the urban version of a snag.

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Gophers San Francisco Blackbirds Hunting 230

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

While keeping track of some hummingbirds in Alta Plaza Park in San Francisco, I noticed a shadow slipping over the terraced hillside. I was pretty new to watching birds and photography when I first met this Red-tailed Hawk. When I looked up the hawk was five feet above my head and powering towards a perch high in the trees.

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San Francisco Gophers Hunting Blackbirds 253

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 27, 2011

I write to you this September from San Francisco, California. On the Farrallon Islands, San Francisco County’s own megararity trap, volunteer researches hope for everything from Red-footed Booby to Golden-cheeked Warbler. Photographed at White Lake, North Dakota. Californian birders live for fall.

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San Francisco North Dakota Albatross California 176

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 21, 2012

Interesting to learn, for example, that in 1885 more than five million birds were killed in the United States for the millinery industry, and that in 1904 market hunters in Oregon killed over 120 tons of waterfowl for the restaurant trade in San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle.

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Hunters Oregon San Francisco Portland 237

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 15, 2015

The best guess scientists have about the “mystery goo” that sickened hundreds of birds in San Francisco Bay earlier this year is “a polymerized oil similar to a vegetable oil.” Don’t put off that birding trip to Ghana on your to-do list—if trends continue, illegal logging may leave you with nothing left to see.

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California Condor San Diego San Francisco Ghana 173

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 5, 2013

A couple of days in San Francisco over the New Year caused me to reflect on how much information we actually need to identify a bird. They were all taken in San Francisco at the end of December. Don’t look at them for too long or your eyes will go funny. Best of luck. How did you get on?

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San Francisco Birds 131

10,000 Birds

MAY 3, 2024

On Tuesday, my wife and I travelled 1750 miles (2,800 km) from our home of thirty years in Morelia, to the region in which I grew up, the San Mateo Peninsula of the San Francisco Bay Area in California. But will I bird?

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San Francisco California Woodpeckers Turkey 245

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 24, 2012

One Seagull Steve was living in San Francisco, on a birding hiatus. Instead of prowling the disgusting shores of Lake Merced for vagrant warblers, he had spent the fall in a haze of scumbaggery and debauchery in seedy bars and filthy apartments across San Francisco. Let me start from the beginning. It was the year 2010.

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San Francisco Sea Lions Lions California 168

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 3, 2014

RATS is co-founded by Golden Gate Raptor Observatory Director Allen Fish and favors the multi-pronged approach: blanketing the press with articles, producing leaflets and pocket guides, copying San Francisco’s Don’t Take the Bait campaign (which persuaded retailers to voluntarily stop selling certain poisons) and successfully installing it in 15 (..)

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Rats Barn Owls Rodents San Francisco 252

10,000 Birds

JUNE 26, 2012

Pine Lake Park, San Francisco, CA. This Snail Kite, photographed from my treacherous 1999 Honda Accord, was right outside Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, FL. Townsend’s Warbler in a busy city park. Look beyond the mountains of dog poo here and there will be birds.

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San Francisco North Dakota Oakland Birds 250

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 13, 2019

Creating a dozen jobs in a small rural community is far more important to that community than creation of a dozen jobs is to San Francisco or Chicago. Although some of the top line numbers may seem modest, many NWRs are in communities where small numbers can be significant.

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Wildlife Maryland San Francisco Minnesota 278

10,000 Birds

JUNE 23, 2022

San Francisco averages two-tenths of an inch for the month, while San Jose only averages half that much. I had set aside the morning of Sunday, June 10th to cross the San Francisco Peninsula to the Pacific Ocean town of Half Moon Bay, a mere 25 minute drive away, for a few hours of birding.

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San Francisco San Jose California Battery 147

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 11, 2015

I was working at the San Francisco Bay Oiled Wildlife Care and Education Center , where the bird was taken. This bird was quite debilitated, nearly emaciated, cold – as any rehabilitator would have known, the bird was near death.

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Los Angeles Wildlife Rehabilitation Killing San Francisco 250

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 23, 2011

If you live north of the San Francisco Bay area in California like I do, or north of Delaware on the east coast, you would most likely be looking at a Greater Yellowlegs. I actually find that a pretty good way to make the identification a bit easier. I must say, however, that geography can play a role also.

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San Francisco Delaware Jordan New York 165

10,000 Birds

APRIL 10, 2015

Red-masked Parakeet, a near-threatened endemic of southwestern Ecuador and northwestern Peru, has sizeable population clusters in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Miami, and Fort Lauderdale.

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Los Angeles Miami San Francisco San Antonio 154

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 2, 2014

When I heard a Least Flycatcher in San Francisco the other day (a quality bird here on the west coast), I had to find the closest birder just to make sure it wasn’t him using his phone. Birders can, and do, mistake someone using playback for a real bird’s real vocalizations. This has happened to me too many times to count.

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San Francisco New York Ethics Experience 264