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PETITION TO UCSF: SAVE SUTRO FOREST
PETITION : Stop NAP, save the Forest
PETITION: Sierra Club, Please Stop!
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Recent Posts
- A Pesticides Road Map
- Season’s Greetings!
- Tree-Thoughts at 125 Years
- Sutro Forest Destruction – March 2022
- More Trees Being Felled in Sutro Forest
- Why Urban Forests Can’t be “Native”
- A Candle for the New Year
- Don’t Feed Coyotes
- Wildcare’s Request: Respect the Nest
- Dr Morley Singer, RIP
- Destruction of Sutro Forest Likely to Accelerate
- Season’s Greetings – 2020
- UCSF Parnassus: December 2020 Meeting Report
- UCSF Plans More Damage to Sutro Forest
- Trees on Clarendon Avenue Felled
A HIKE IN SUTRO FOREST (Links)
BIRDS & WILDLIFE IN BAY AREA (Links)
- Bird checklist for San Francisco from USGS
- Birding – A really good blog for Oregon and California (including San Francisco)
- Birding on Mt Sutro
- San Francisco's coyotes
- The Beavers at Martinez
- Urban Wildness: San Francisco wildlife (birds, coyotes, insects)
- Wildlife Activism blog
- Wildlife Hospital in San Rafael (Marin County, CA)
BUTTERFLY ID (Links)
HERBICIDES (Links)
SAVING TREES (Links)
SITES OF INTEREST (Other Links)
Tag Archives: birds
Invisible Nests – Tree Work Should Avoid the Nesting Season
This article is reposted with permission from CoyoteYipps, a blog about San Francisco’s urban coyotes. We republish it here as an interesting story – and a lesson in how difficult it is to see a bird’s nest even if you … Continue reading
Posted in Environment
Tagged bird nesting season, birds, thinning, wildlife
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Protecting Mount Sutro Cloud Forest Helps Biodiversity
In view of discussions of biodiversity and mosaics in ecosystems, we are republishing a post from May 2010 that addresses this issue. Mount Sutro Cloud Forest is part of a mosaic of biodiversity in the Western part of San Francisco. … Continue reading
Posted in Environment, Mt Sutro Cloud Forest
Tagged biodiversity, birds, cloud forest, environment, mount sutro, Sutro Forest
1 Comment
Sutro Forest: Good News; Bad News; Action Alert
Last month, we wrote about about two things: Tree-cutting in Sutro Forest in the bird nesting season; San Francisco’s new “Office of Biodiversity” that was looking for a $250,000 grant to fund developing a so-called ‘Biodiversity Plan’ that would extend … Continue reading
Posted in Environment, Mount Sutro Stewards, nativism, UCSF
Tagged birds, mount sutro, Sutro Forest, Sutro Stewards, tree killers, trees
1 Comment
Sutro Forest: Risk and Uncertainty
UCSF’s sent out another notice for tree removals. Presumably, these will be the remaining trees marked with orange dots last year. It’s the middle of the nesting season now, and we do not understand either the urgency — or the … Continue reading
Posted in Mt Sutro Cloud Forest, UCSF
Tagged birds, environment, mount sutro, nativism, Natural Areas Program, Sutro Forest
5 Comments
Felling Orange-dot Trees in the Nesting Season
In March 2014, soon after UCSF said it was delaying work on the Draft Environmental Impact Report for now – it sent around this message. “Beginning on Monday, March 17th, Bartlett Tree Experts will be performing tree work throughout the … Continue reading
Posted in Environment, Mt Sutro Cloud Forest, UCSF
Tagged birds, mount sutro, Sutro Forest, trees, wildlife
4 Comments
February Idyll in Mount Sutro Forest: Bikes, Flowers, Slug
The welcome little storm that passed through a few days ago watered the forest, but it wasn’t actually raining on February 13th. So when someone emailed us to say they wanted to see the forest – for the first time … Continue reading
Posted in Environment, Hiking, Mt Sutro Cloud Forest
Tagged birds, hiking, mount sutro, Sutro Forest, trails, wildlife
2 Comments
Rat Poison Killed Glen Canyon’s Owl
This article has been republished from ForestKnolls.info as a caution to everyone interested in protecting our owls. They live in Sutro Forest, too. We hope and believe that UCSF does not use rodenticides in the Aldea Student Housing, but we … Continue reading
Ostriches below Mt Sutro Forest
If we were thinking of non-native species of birds, we probably couldn’t get much further than ostriches. So it seemed particularly appropriate to post this picture. The graceful non-native trees of Mt Sutro Forest fill the background, and in the … Continue reading
Posted in Mt Sutro Cloud Forest, nativism
Tagged birds, mount sutro, Sutro Forest
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Fact Check: Nothing Grows UnderEucalyptus? (Allelopathy)
Like most people in the US, we’ve been listening to some of the political speeches and the discussion around them recently. And we’re rather heartened by a newly emerging trend: fact-checking. In the last few months, one “fact” we’ve heard … Continue reading
Posted in Environment, eucalyptus, Mt Sutro Cloud Forest, nativism
Tagged birds, cloud forest, eucalyptus myths, Mount Davidson, mount sutro, wildlife
1 Comment
The Forest in May
Spring in the Sutro Forest is lovely. Where the canopy is largely unbroken, the sunlight streams through the trees with the filtered light particular to forests. Last week, flowers bloomed in the lower reaches of the mountain: the pinkish-purple Robert … Continue reading
Posted in Mt Sutro Cloud Forest
Tagged birds, opening up the forest, Sutro Forest, trails
2 Comments
San Francisco’s Natural Areas Program Ignores Breeding Birds
We’d written earlier about chainsaws in Glen Canyon Park, even though spring is the breeding season for birds and animals, a time when trees and thickets should be left undisturbed. [Click HERE to read that article, Chainsaws in the Nesting … Continue reading
Posted in Environment, eucalyptus, Natural areas Program
Tagged birds, eucalyptus, Glen Canyon, Natural Areas Program, wildlife
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Glen Canyon Park: Chainsaws in the Nesting Season
The nesting season for birds is in full swing. San Francisco’s mild winter and recent rains have provided a window for building and breeding, and they’ve grabbed it. The birding reports are full of lovely stories, from humming-birds to Great … Continue reading
Posted in Environment, nativism, Natural areas Program
Tagged birds, Glen Canyon, habitat, Natural Areas Program, wildlife
5 Comments
The $3.4 mn “Park” at Sutro Dunes
We’ve driven by there a hundred times, and never noticed it… but it’s a Natural Area and a park, opposite Ocean Beach. It’s just below the bluff topped by Sutro Park, across the road from some neat condos. It’s been … Continue reading
Posted in Environment, nativism, Natural areas Program
Tagged birds, native plants, nativism, Natural Areas Program
5 Comments
The San Francisco Forest Alliance
We’ve been critical of the so-called “Natural” areas program (or officially, the Significant Natural Resource Areas Plan) that covers some 1100 acres across 32 separate parks in San Francisco. While the idea of a Natural Area is appealing (as it … Continue reading
Posted in Environment, eucalyptus, Herbicides, Herbicides: Roundup, Garlon, nativism, Natural areas Program
Tagged birds, habitat, herbicide, native plants, nativism, Natural Areas Program, san francisco, trees, wildlife
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Glen Canyon Park: Birds, Habitat, and the Significant Natural Resource Areas Management Program (SNRAMP)
Recently, we attended a meeting where we were given a beautiful pamphlet regarding the Feathered Friends of Glen Canyon Park. It pictured 45 species of birds that have been sighted in the park (including flyovers). And it said: “Willows that … Continue reading
Posted in Environment, nativism, Natural areas Program
Tagged birds, Glen Canyon, habitat, habitat destruction, san francisco
1 Comment
The Summer Tanager and San Francisco’s Non-Native Plants
One of the more interesting groups to watch, if you like birds, is the Yahoo group SF Birds. (Anyone can read it, but you must join to post in it. [ETA: It’s apparently been changed to a members-only group; only … Continue reading
Why San Francisco’s Natural Areas Are — Unnatural
WHEN I first heard about San Francisco’s Natural Areas Program (SF NAP) some years ago, I was charmed. Over 1000 acres of city-owned land would be left to Nature, more wild and free than the orderly, gardened lawns and playgrounds … Continue reading
Bird-safe Buildings for San Francisco
Bird-killers. More dangerous than wind-farms, more insidious than cats… it’s windows. (The glass ones, not the thing produced by Microsoft.) Birds can’t see normal glass, and crash into it. Either they die, or they become easy prey. San Francisco, like … Continue reading
Cats, Catbirds: Why the Smithsonian study doesn’t say what everyone thinks it does
There’s been a huge amount of publicity recently about a 2004 study, publicized by the highly-respected Smithsonian. It implies that cats are the main cause of death of songbirds, and has become a talking point for those advocating stronger measures … Continue reading
Posted in Environment, Mount Sutro Stewards, Mt Sutro Cloud Forest
Tagged birds, cat, catbird, mount sutro, smithsonian, smithsonian study, Sutro Forest
15 Comments
Habitat Destruction with Sutro Stewards
Around this time last year, Sutro Forest was alive with birdsong all day from dawn to late dusk. “We walked up into the Sutro Forest on a peaceful bird-filled evening,” we wrote in late February 2010. “A few outside noises … Continue reading
Posted in Environment, Mount Sutro Stewards
Tagged birds, blackberry, eucalyptus, mt sutro stewards, Sutro Forest, Sutro Stewards, wildlife
7 Comments
Mount Sutro Forest Ecosystem and Wildlife Habitat
We’ve talked earlier about how Sutro Forest works as a Cloud Forest, and why it’s always damp. Today, it’s Sutro Forest as an ecosystem and a habitat. UCSF recently had a scoping meeting for its Environmental Impact Review for their … Continue reading
Posted in Environment, eucalyptus, Mount Sutro Stewards, UCSF
Tagged acacia, birds, blackberry, cloud forest, english ivy, eucalyptus, mount sutro, Sutro Forest, wildlife
19 Comments
Ravens vs Great Horned Owls by Patricia Greene
We’re always interested in our forest’s most spectacular residents: The Great Horned Owls. Today we saw this fascinating account from Patricia Greene on a birding group, and are re-printing it below with permission. I and others have been hearing Great … Continue reading
Posted in Mt Sutro Cloud Forest
Tagged birds, great horned owl, mount sutro, Sutro Forest, wildlife
1 Comment
Sutro Forest Visit: Hawk and Butterflies
It was a beautiful day up in the forest, bright and breezy. We took the trail from Christopher to the South Ridge trail, then up the South Ridge Trail to the Native Garden. The connector trail had been aggressively groomed, … Continue reading
Posted in eucalyptus, Mt Sutro Cloud Forest
Tagged birds, mount sutro, Sutro Forest, thinning, wildlife
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The Failed Experiment at Tank Hill
Someone emailed us to ask why UCSF were bothering with demonstration projects, when there was the obvious example of Tank Hill. “Trees were cut down, natives planted and died,” said the email. What did they achieve? So we looked into … Continue reading
Posted in Environment, eucalyptus, nativism, Neighborhood impact
Tagged birds, butterfly, native plants, nativism, Natural Areas Program, Tank Hill
11 Comments
Hazardous Tree Removal, Chain Link Fence, etc
At the last agenda planning meeting, one of the issues raised was managing hazardous trees near homes. A Forest Knolls resident of Crestmont Drive pointed out that neither the City nor UCSF were accepting responsibility for hazardous trees (some dead, … Continue reading
More Sutro Forest Birds
Some time ago, we’d posted a bird-list from birder Keith McAllister: Nearly 30 species seen or heard in a single morning in the Sutro Forest. From several other people, and covering several separate visits to the forest, we have yet … Continue reading
Posted in eucalyptus, Mt Sutro Cloud Forest
Tagged birds, mount sutro, Sutro Forest, wildlife
12 Comments
Mount Sutro Forest That Was 