It was nearly 90s degrees here yesterday. I walked outside after a morning of practice and Zoom meetings and was instantly disoriented. A week ago, the suddenly fall-like cooler nights and evenings, compounded by the fog that not only swamped Hawk Hill but reached its fingers across the bay to Alameda, sent us reaching for our sweaters. Suddenly, it was tank-top and shorts-weather again.
Toward the end of the day, I took it as a call to stop by the beach on the way to an appointment downtown.
I can go weeks forgetting about the beach in Alameda even though it's a mile away. The algae bloom of late summer also put me off going at all for most of the season. So I was slightly stunned by yesterday’s muted blue calm. The tide was out and sand was on the harder side of packed and easy to walk on with thongs. A few people were on the sand as were a flock of Ring-billed gulls and one woman — likely not a local — waded out slowly in her bathing suit. Brown Pelicans and Ring-billed gulls, a few terns in the distance. I made a note to stop by the Elsie Roemer Bird Sanctuary after my appointment — while the hawks have been migrating over Hawk Hill, the shorebirds have been returning to the wetlands.
The US 'State of the Birds' came out last week amid all the other noise, and identified "90 declining bird species—birds that are not yet federally listed as threatened or endangered, but that have lost half or more of their breeding population since 1970." Of those, 70 are 'Tipping Point' species, birds who “could lose another half or more of their populations in the next 50 years.” It’s staggering. Among those are many ‘locals’: Whimbrels and Ruddy Turnstones, Short-billed Dowitcher and Least Terns.
There are so many alarms going off right now, it’s hard to keep track. But even if you’re not particularly bird-aware, there are many Simple Actions to Help Birds that you can take, including keeping your cats indoors and making your windows safer.
And, of course, vote!
To add to your Midterm Elections prep, you can also sign the Audubon Pledge to call on elected leaders to find climate solutions, and/or join their Action Network.
Despite all the overwhelm — and because of it — I made sure to get out to the bird sanctuary after my trip to the dentist. The place was full of shorebirds — the Dunlins and the Elegant Terns and the Black-bellied Plovers and Widgeons, more Pelicans — and I wondered what they knew. If they noticed their numbers changing. For the moment, though, it was just beautiful. Wings and water and the various bird calls filling the air. I was grateful to see it. I hope we can all make it last.