Nature and Culture
by Kay Loughman
Once again, December's birdwalk led by Dave Quady produced a nice selection of expected species. Five of us gathered at 4:30am to listen for owls. We were joined by four others for daylight birding. In all, 27 species were seen; but in an unanticipated twist, 23 of them were seen initially right at the top of Claremont Canyon. (For the uninitiated, seeing ten species in that place would have been satisfying, so 23 was amazing!) Keeping company with a flock of juncos were four sparrow species and both towhees. Nearby we saw woodpeckers, warblers, thrushes, jays, chickadees, kinglets, bushtits and several others (list follows). Though ...Read more
A Personal Journey by Marilyn Goldhaber
In 1989, my family and I moved into our new home on a steep, narrow road that dead-ended in a marvelous wildland park. Our lot was the last on the street and was itself effectively a wild garden with a shady front yard of live oak trees and a sunny back hill covered with grass and forbs. Upwards from our lot rose the ridges and draws of the park, the steep 208-acre Claremont Canyon Regional Preserve...Read more
by Dave Quady
We began at 5 a.m. at the foot of Gelston Street with the temperature hovering in the mid-40s and the marine layer's ceiling only a few hundred feet overhead. No great horned owls were audible, so American robins were first to break the silence. They sang in numbers until the light level increased and they relinquished the soundscape to their sound-similar replacements, black-headed grosbeak. At least one olive-sided flycatcher (a California Bird Species of Special Concern, and always nice to find) sang repeatedly from not far uphill. As s...Read more
by Kay Loughman
INVITE YOUR BUDDIES TO GO BIRDING with you in Claremont Canyon and you may be met with excuses. Most serious birders don’t spend time in Claremont Canyon, believing the effort to find birds unlikely to pay off.
But birds are around! And sometimes there are delightful surprises, as on December’s bird walk with Dave Quady, when we were thrilled to hear northern saw-whet and western screech-owls in addition to the expected great horned owls.
Dave, an experienced birder and field trip leader with an affinity for owls, has led Conservancy bird walks for several years. And for decades he has also led the team that covers Claremont Canyon for the Oakland Christmas Bird Count. Dave would probably agree that with wind, traffic noise, and steep or narrow trails, bird finding in Claremont Canyon can be a challeng...Read more
A Report by Marilyn Goldhaber of the January 27, 2011 Nature Walk
A half a dozen of us were fortunate to accompany Lech last Saturday on a botanical exploration of coastal scrub-grassland interface areas on the south facing slope. We first met mid-canyon along Claremont Avenue at the Telegraph Canyon Trail where we left off a couple of cars. Then we piled into the remaining cars and drove to the Stonewall Rd Trailhead. A two-mile hike ensued up the steep Panoramic Trail, stopping often to observe the flora and taking a side trek along a deer path into north coastal scrub where we saw many interesting plants, quite a few in flower. We reached the highest point on the ridge that separates Strawberry and Claremont canyons and took a few pictures of the great panoramic views there. To see more pictures of this f...Read more
by Kay Loughman, December 12, 2010
In an amazing vocal performance, three species of owls were heard in Claremont Canyon before dawn on Saturday, December 11. Led by Dave Quady, an owl expert and aficionado, a dozen participants in a Conservancy birding field trip heard the following:
Great Horned Owl - five or more, vocalizing at the same time,
Northern Saw-Whet Owl - two (duet), and
Western Screech-Owl - at least one, maybe two
After breakfast the group birded along Claremont Avenue between Gelston St. and Grizzly Peak Blvd., with choice of locations limited by the lingering fog (click here for a slide show). Highlights included Hutton’s Vireo and Ruby-crowned Kinglet (species often difficult to tell apart) in the same willows, a female Townsend’s Warbler (photo, right), and a doze...Read more
A Report by Marilyn Goldhaber of the January 27, 2011 Nature Walk
A DOZEN CONSERVANCY MEMBERS AND FRIENDS visited the Pacifica Foundation site of the KPFA Radio Towers overlooking Gwin and Claremont Canyons, with Jake Sigg, long-time advocate of native plant restoration in the Bay Area and author of the widely read “Nature News from Jake Sigg.” Jake helped us identify native plants and provided insights on the landscape, a naturally rough and exposed knoll overlooking much of the bay area to the west and Mount Diablo and the inner valley to the east.
The site had significant weedy invasions before undergoing regular stewardship by KPFA volunteers Bob Nelson and Robert MacConnell. ...Read more
Ken Moore Wildland Restoration Pioneer by Mary Millman, May 1, 2010
JANUARY 8, 2010 WAS A DARK AND STORMY Friday night. No one had really recovered from the holidays. Everyone should have been home and if he or she were of a certain age, getting ready for bed! So it is difficult to overstate our amazement that fifty or more people drove up to Skyline Boulevard to the Trudeau Center by 7 PM to hear Ken Moore—self-styled “Wildland Restoration Pioneer” and undisputed wunderkind of weed busting tools—talk for two hours about how to eradicate invasive exotic French broom from our wildlands.
The Conservancy and two co-sponsors, the East Bay Regional Park District and the Hills Emergency Forum, had invited Ken to discuss his approach to combating French broom invasions, a subject that was discussed at length in the Conservancy’s last newsletter. With his carefully selected tools close at hand, and drawing upon his wealth of expe...Read more
