I started birding early last year. Ever since then, birding has become one of my favorite things to do. Birds are always doing something interesting. Sometimes they are eating, flying, or singing. It is so wonderful knowing that every time I go birding, I am going to see something different. It could be a different bird, or a new behavior, but I know that it will be new and interesting every time. I enjoy both drawing and crocheting birds, and I just love birds in general. With my love of birds came a love of bird photography. Capturing fleeting moments with the push of a button (or in this case, a click of the shutter button) is super fun for me. With birds, they are literally ...​

​The season of gift-giving, for me, is an excuse to think about each of the children on my mental list of family and friends. What are their interests? How have they grown in the last year?  What would help to stretch their imaginations, their curiosity, their knowledge?

For the youngest on my list, one of this year’s books will certainly be Robin Page’s The Beak Book (Beach Lane, 2021). Oversized, detailed illustrations by the author show a variety of bird beaks and their uses, from straining (ruddy duck) and ​sniffing (kiwi) to prying (red crossbill) ..

​I am an avid sixteen-year-old birder living in the Bay Area.  I began paying attention to birds over a decade ago, but really started birding when I was eight after picking up a bird guide at my local bookstore. I attempted to make my own bird guide, which was quite a challenge for an eight-year- old.  Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out like a Sibley’s Bird Guide.  Since then, birding has been a passion for me.  

​Today, birding has become a family affair.  My family ...

​The Kids Bird Art Contest is a fun annual contest that brings science and art together. We typically invite kids ages 3-17 to spend time outside recording information about birds in their neighborhood or at a nearby park and then to create a scientific drawing with notes in the style of a nature journal or field guide. This year, in the spirit of SFBBO’s 40th Anniversary, we instead asked kids to recall a memorable experience they had with birds in nature and create a drawing and written story that reflects that encounter. 

Each year for SFBBO’s California Fall Challenge (CFC) fundraiser, we unveil new CFC T-Shirt design as part of our efforts to raise money to support our science and outreach work.

With this year being SFBBO’s 40th anniversary, we knew we had to do a special shirt to celebrate 40 years of conserving birds and their habitats and educating the community.

What better way to do that than by featuring 40 bird species? Science illustrator and graphic designer Julie Ho Sung was up for the challenge.

​With so many Bay Area bird species to choose from, we ultimately decided to include these 40, read below to learn about these birds and their connection to our work!

​The birds were 40 days old. 

It was August 20th and I was at Eden Landing Ecological Reserve in Hayward, a haven for many bird species, including the three Western Snowy Plover juveniles patiently waiting in a plastic pet carrier that was their temporary home. 

My colleague Ben Pearl, a biologist, held the carrier in one hand, a spotting scope slung over his other shoulder. He walked slowly across the moonscape ground, eyes peeled for movement that would let us know where the older plovers were hiding among white algae and shells. I followed a half step behind, our boots crunching softly on the dried earth.

SFBBO’s 40th Anniversary

The symbolism of their age was not lost on us. This fall the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory ...

In this month's Wingbeat e-newsletter, read about our upcoming 40th Anniversary plans and how you can get involved by sharing stories and photos about your experiences with SFBBO; learn about our 2021 California Fall Challenge (CFC) fundraising activities to raise $40,000, including our Bird Photo Big Day, Band-a-Thon, online silent auction, and in-person birding tours to see plovers, migrants, and more; check out our Birdy Hour virtual talks about Salt Marsh Sparrows, Snowy Plovers, bird friendly chocolate, burrowing owls, humpback whales of the Pacific Ocean, the wildlife of Cape Cod, bird watercoloring, backyard birding and the history of Chinese, and how to become a scientist; and the latest in staff and board migrations. 

In this month's Wingbeat e-newsletter, see SFBBO's spot on NBC News; learn about our new Teen Volunteer Program; check out our participation in the Los Gatos Library's Our Nature's Stories program; learn about our partnership with SJSU to produce the Tidal Marsh Tuesdays social media campaign; read about bird banding in our new Notes from the Station miniblog and find out which colony has the most nests this season  in our Colonial Waterbird Program; visit with a nesting wren family; celebrate several large anonymous donations to support our work; and get involved in a future Birdy Hour or bird workshop!

I have always had a fascination with birds, growing in Arandas, Jalisco Mexico my Abuelito kept many birds, he fed them, cared for them and I would help him with his daily tasks. But later in life, birds became part of my art inspiration, birds were my subjects and my muses but it was last year that I really started to learn and to be able to identify, both visually and auditorily, many species of birds.

When my family and I moved to the states we ...