The monthly volunteer newsletter of the
February 7, 2017
Golden Gate Raptor Observatory
RAPTOR PASSAGE
Inside this issue:
2016 Season Banquet
Review
2
Intern Dispatches
4
Bander Notes
6
Editor’s Corner
7
Art of the Month: Back
Emily Pierce Cover
Spring Birding
D
Issue #341
ear Raptorphiles—
It was tremendously gratifying to gather at the 2017 Annual
GGRO Potluck, the biggest gathering we’ve had with roughly
200 hawkwatchers, banders, telemetrists, and their families &
friends! Very appropriate for our 30th annual potluck celebration. Held
in the then-empty Ft Cronkhite Chapel (now the Visitor Center), 1987
was a much smaller affair and featured a mix of hawkwatchers and
banders singing and dancing to the newly-written “Raptor Rap.”
(Continued on page 2)
A
lcatraz Waterbird Docents needed! During nesting season, from Apr
15 through Aug 31, docents assist visitors in understanding the behavOpportunities
ior, feeding, and breeding ecology of nesting seabird species. The docent
will staff an outdoor station within view of a seabird
colony and explain the activities of the breeding populations, answering additional questions as needed.
Volunteers make a commitment to docent on the
island for 8 hours per month (4 biweekly) minimum.
See the attached flyer for more information!
S
kaggs Island Raptor Tours with Tim Behr—Every Tuesday in February
No RSVP needed! Trips start at 12pm at the gate to Skaggs Island Rd just off
SR-37, about five miles east of the 121 junction (Sonoma Raceway exit). Rain cancels and inclement weather such as Tule fog or drizzle will be an on-site decision.
Tim has been doing winter raptor surveys on Skaggs for San Pablo Bay NWR for
several years and believes it to be one of the best wintering grounds for raptors
in the greater Bay Area. Bring your own optics. Tim will also be leading tours for
the SF Bay Flyway festival on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Feb 10-12! For a full
list of events, visit www.sfbayflywayfestival.com
The lucky watcher might see a
Rough-legged Hawk at Skaggs
Island ©Don Bartling
The Raptor Passage is written by Allen Fish, Teresa Ely, Step Wilson & Laura Young; Edited & assembled by Laura Young
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2017 Banquet Review
Milestone Awards
5 years:
Jim Broadstreet
Chris Cruz
Belle Davis
Jim Davis
Jen Gale
Mary Ellen Hannibal
Cheri Hinkley
Jenn Ho
Sue Morgan
Maureen Noon
Kenn Osborne
Dana Owens
Jeff Robinson
Dede Sabbag
Sarah Sawtelle
Kate Skelly
Tim Stoddard
10 years:
Johnny Brown
David Herrema
Roy Pisetsky
This incredible
contribution to
the potluck
(“falcon fudge” by
Nancy Brink) may
have inspired a
new tradition:
raptor-themed
cook-off, anyone?
15 years:
Carroll Botvinick
Jim Clausen
Richard Ferris
Ross Forman
Angelo Gilbert
Joan Lamphier
Steve Miller
Steve O'Neill
20 years:
Claire O'Neil
Brian Smucker
25 years:
Randy Breaux
Phil Capitolo
Lewis Cooper
Pat Overshiner
Ralph Pericoli
Elizabeth Rouan
Marion Weeks
Nick Whelan
(Continued from page 1)
Thanks to all who attended our 2017 fete,
and especially to: long-suffering partners and
family members who pretended to get the inside jokes; to our musical guests, Deborah
Crooks and Kwame Copeland, great thanks for
performing your lovely acoustic music while
people got settled; and thanks to all our hardworking GGRO staff who got the party up and
running over the past weeks, especially to our
chief organizer Laura Young.
—Allen Fish
Special Recognitions
Christine and son Kody Cariño made enormous strides
in taming the wilds of the GGRO library, sorting and
cataloging the prodigious donations we’ve received.
Diane Horn and Craig Nikitas took on the daunting
task of updating the Bander Work Policy to reflect the
changing needs of our program.
Buzz Hull provided immeasurable support and guidance during the staff transition.
Bob Power brought a new level of studentship to the
Hawkwatch mentoring program, with around 100
hours of teaching and learning dedicated to improving
identification skills for new volunteers.
Claire O’Neil brought stability and initiative to keep
the behind-the-scenes side of Townsley running
smoothly.
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Many thanks to our fabulous photographer, David Jesus! We hope to see you all next year!
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2016 Banding High Days
High Number: 62 birds, Fri 2, Sep 23; Banders present: Randy
Breaux, Teresa Ely, Jennifer Gale, Josh Hull, Violet Kimzey, Robert Martin, Craig Nikitas (DL), Claire O'Neil, Jean Perata, Jeff
Robinson, Will Rose, Brian Smucker, Craig Tewell, and Traci Tsukida
High Spp: 4-way tie! 6 species, Sept 17, 22, 23, 30 / Fri 1, Fri 2,
Sat 1, Thu 2; Banders present: Emily Abernathy, Rosa Albanese,
Anne Ardillo, Marc Blumberg, Randy Breaux, Nancy Brink, Candace Davenport, Russ Delong, Teresa Ely, Jennifer Gale, Jill
Grant, Jennifer Ho, Calvin Hom, Diane Horn, Dick Horn, Buzz
Hull, Josh Hull, Violet Kimzey, Allison Levin, Eric Lynch, Tara
McIntire, Nancy Mori, Elizabeth Ng, Chase O'Neil, Claire O'Neil,
Steve O'Neill, Dana Owens, Emily Pierce, Bill Prochnow, Mike
Reese, Jeff Robinson, Steve Rock, Brian Smucker, Virginia Snider, John Ungar, Kristin Vorhies, and Step Wilson
2016 Hawkwatch High Days
High Count: 577 sightings, Sat 1, Sep 11; Hawkwatchers present: Johnny Brown, Nevin Cullen, Kathleen Gadway, Angelo
Gilbert, Melissa Hero, Ruth Holbrook, Nora Holmes, Tom
Holmes, Melissa Kohner, Steve Miller, Jane Rudebusch, Terrie
Schweitzer, Curtis Snyder, Tate Snyder, Violet Kimzey, Isabel
Lawrence, Bob Power, John Farnsworth, Tim Behr, Herb Brandt,
Linda Sudduth, Sally Cedarblade, and Bob Blumberg
High Spp: 14 species, Tue 1, Oct 11; Hawkwatchers present:
Tim Behr, Isabel Lawrence, Chase O'Neil, Jim Broadstreet,
Christina Cambie, Kathy Eagle, Jess Gabriel, Ron Parker, Eileen
Richey, Peter Sapenzia, John Farnsworth, Jim Hallisey, Herb
Brandt, Christine Steck, Maureen Noon, and Caryl Carr
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Raptors in flight ©Jack Laws
Welcome to the first installment of a new segment we’re calling, “Intern Dispatches”! Every so often, we’ll feature a GGRO intern—from a where-are-they-now update to their favorite anecdote of life after GGRO. (Submissions welcome, all you former intern readers!)
Violet: I'm so thankful for this internship! I learned a lot and I am so
thankful for the stories and experiences you shared with me and things
you taught me. For now, I've moved back to Berkeley (my favorite
place) and am looking for my next job. Hopefully I'll be back with the
GGRO as a volunteer this fall!
Intern
Dispatches
Chase: Well, this is my goodbye, for now… but I hope to return and see the lovely GGRO volunteers once
again. Thank you all for your advice, knowledge, and patience in teaching a novice like me. Thank you especially for the stories told between IDing birds and on cold days in a shaking banding blind. For now I’m off to
Lansing, MI to analyze hyena behavior videos for a little bit, and then, who knows?
Isabel: While it’s nice to get out of
the weather, the view of the Headlands from an office window isn’t
very satisfying. My next stop is just
some miles up the road at the Palomarin Field Station where I will be
working as a banding intern with
Point Blue. I’ll miss the raptors, but
songbirds can be just as awesome.
Thank you to the staff, volunteers,
and other interns who made my
experience here worthwhile. I have
learned so much and laughed even
more throughout my time here.
See you ‘round like a doughnut!
From the Class of 2016,
with Love & Raptors
Emily: This season with GGRO has been my greatest learning experience in my raptor career yet. I am so beyond grateful to everyone who taught me, gave me career or life advice, and shared their gluten-free goodies! I am still searching for the next step; lots of resumes floating around out there. So until then, you can
find me glued to an Excel spreadsheet at 1064.
Robert: Thank you for making my experience at the GGRO fulfilling and memorable. I leave the Marin Headlands feeling inspired by the strength of citizen involvement in conservation research. For the next six
months, I will be living and working in the Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge in Ventura County,
working with USFWS biologists to monitor Southern California’s condor population. I hope to pursue a career
that bridges my dual interests in science and policy. The skills I developed at GGRO and meaningful relationships I formed with members of the conservation community will serve me well in upcoming endeavors.
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banders with well-honed net repair skills! Menders will assemble at Bldg. 1064 on Sun, Mar 19 &
Sat, Apr 22, to assess and begin repairing DGs.
RSVP directly to [email protected].
Bander
Off-season Townsley—if you have not signed
up for a day to do Townsley please do so. Contact
Diane if you have questions about how to use the
new calendar system, [email protected].
Notes
By Teresa Ely
O
ff-season tasks—We’re conducting business
as usual for coordinating the off-season
tasks. The “Task Master” will be responsible for
organizing dates/times throughout the season.
Behind the scenes, Diane is working on streamlining how we sign up for off-season tasks, which
we’ll debut later.
So check your inboxes as we will be sending
out off-season task reminders as they arrive.
Note: this may not come directly from Teresa or
Laura email, you may receive an email from the
person in charge of the task.
May you all be rewarded with a dark-morph Harlan’s Hawk like the one this lucky bander is holding.
H
UGE THANK YOU to the volunteers that
came out to help with HAWK and POAK
blind take down: Nicole Beadle, Alan Bleiman,
Nancy Brink, Ryan Byrnes, Susanna Czuchra,
F
irst on the docket: net mending! We can’t
(safely) trap hawks without nets in good condition, and it’s known that the hawk gods favor
Acknowledgements
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A big THANK YOU to all that helped with Townsley during the holiday season and off-season weekends: Ryan Byrnes, Susanna Czuchra, Candace Davenport, Deanna de Castro, Dick and Diane Horn, Eric
Jepsen, Allison Levin, Mary Malec, Cindy McCauley, Marc McCaustland, Tara McIntire, Tani Myers,
Elizabeth Ng, Claire O’Neil, Steve O’Neill, Sean Peterson, Cricket Raspet, Jeff Robinson, Paul Romanak,
Jack Schofield, Lynn Schofield, Brian Smucker, and Dana Owens.
Diane Horn researched, created, and implemented the new off-season Townsley calendar, editing directions and making it easy for everyone to use
Claire O’Neil and Fuzzy for picking up Townsley feed
Brian Smucker and Paul Romanak made repairs and mouse-proofed the field cage floors
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Deanna de Castro, Anastasia
Ennis, Robert Martin, Cindy
McCauley, Craig Nikitas, Phoebe
Parker-Shames, Jean Perata,
Paul Romanak, Will Rose, Brian
Smucker, Craig Tewell, Cricket
Raspet, Michael Reese, Steve
Rock, Traci Tsukida, Emily Weil,
Brad Valentine.
Due to road conditions, we
were unable to drive up Slacker
Road. Banders made three, four,
and even five trips up to POAK,
to haul the blind pieces down to
the fire gate. Great work out!
SLAK BLIND TAKE-DOWN,
Feb 18 @9am: All hands on
providing PIZZA lunch for eve-
deck! Slacker Blind has been
disassembled but is still sitting
on the hill thanks to the relentless, drought-quenching rain
this January. Volunteering for a
site take down is required, so if
you have not been to one, well
mark your calendars because
here is your chance.
The reason for this generous
offer? Because continued rain
makes the Slacker road conditions uncertain, volunteers
should be prepared to possibly
walk from the fire gate to SLAK
blind. With roughly 20-30 individual blind pieces to haul
down, we need all the help we
can get to make the job easier.
PLEASE RSVP so we can get an
accurate headcount beforehand
for pizza-ordering purposes!
And even if you have met
the take down requirement, we
could really use your help. So to
sweeten the pot, we will be
ryone who comes out!
Editor’s
...Oh, hey there, are you still reading? Awesome! Time to let you in on some behind-the-scenes work taking place at 1064. After a couple decades, GGRO has
officially taken over the whole building! Remember that know-man’s land upstairs past the library? That’s ours now too! Most excitingly, by the time you
come back next fall (because you’re all coming back, right?!) the downstairs
By Laura Young
space is going to have had a much-needed face lift. Highlights of what’s in store:
floor to ceiling fresh coat of paint; a dedicated volunteer room for mail & phone
calls; expanded storage; even a kitchen. Did I mention the KITCHEN (which will be upstairs)? With a big
fridge & an actual sink to wash human dishes in that’s not in a bathroom?? Yeah, I’m pretty excited
about that one. Small victories.
We’re waiting on final approval from the NPS compliance office and then it’s off to the races! Work
is anticipated to only take about three weeks, so we do not expect the renovations to impact spring
activities. That said, chaos will reign at 1064 until upgrades are complete, so if you were thinking of
stopping by in the next few weeks, we’d kindly suggest waiting until the end of March. Stay tuned!
Corner
GGRO Phone List & All-Purpose Reference Box
General GGRO Contact: 415-331-0730 or [email protected]
mailbox 2: GGRO Director—Allen Fish, [email protected]
mailbox 3: GGRO Hawkwatch Manager—Step Wilson, [email protected]
mailbox 4: GGRO Operations Manager—Laura Young, [email protected]
mailbox 5: GGRO Banding Manager—Teresa Ely, [email protected]
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Golden Gate Raptor Observatory
Bldg. 1064, Ft. Cronkhite
Sausalito, California 94965
(415) 331-0730
[email protected]
www.ggro.org
The GGRO is a program of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy in cooperation with the National Park Service.
While not definitive, eye color can provide a tantalizing clue to the
age of a Cooper’s Hawk (From top to bottom: Juvenile female,
After 2nd year female, After 2nd year male) ©Emily Pierce
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