The fall of 2020 was a difficult time to be a middle school student in Alameda. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, schools were closed for in-person learning while students and teachers struggled to implement distance classes via Zoom. Social and extra-curricular activities associated with school were cancelled. Marci Nettles, a sixth-grade science teacher at Will C. Wood Middle School [1] wanted to provide some way to re-engage kids and get them out into nature to learn about the environment and climate change. Noticing that the Alameda shoreline attracted thousands of wintering birds a short distance from the school, she decided to encourage the kids to become birders.
[2]Not being a birder herself, Marci asked me to come along to help find and identify birds for the students. The first outing was in October 2020, with about a dozen students and parents. Keeping our distance and staying masked against the dreaded virus, we started out at Towata Park near the Bay Farm bridge and walked along the shoreline toward Elsie Roemer Bird Sanctuary. The shoreline is an excellent place for beginning birders because the birds are numerous and easy to see. Many of them are also distinctive and interesting, like black-necked stilts, long-billed curlews, and black oystercatchers. Although the smaller ones like dunlin and western sandpiper are not as eye-catching on the ground, their sheer numbers and activity are impressive. When they take to the air in massive flocks, the sight of thousands of birds swirling above with the sunlight glinting off their wings is something to behold.
[3]The school has now incorporated birding trips into the curriculum for all sixth- and seventh-grade students. During this school year, 438 students — led by 12 teachers and 28 parent volunteers — attended one of six field trips to either Elsie Roemer Bird Sanctuary or Crab Cove. Nine of our local community of avid birders were on hand to answer questions, help identify birds, and share spotting scopes to give the kids closer looks at the birds. Many of the birders are members of the Golden Gate Bird Alliance [4] and Friends of the Alameda Wildlife Reserve [5].
Each student carries a journal to document observations, including sketching and taking notes on several of the birds that they identify. These hands-on activities help to focus and engage the students, and many of them dive in with great enthusiasm. Not all of them are as excited about the birds, but they enjoy the opportunity to be outdoors at the shore. (None of them likes the marshy smell.)
[6]The group keeps a list of all the species observed and enters the results into the eBird [7] app, a citizen science database maintained by Cornell Lab to monitor bird observations all over the world. The school has enough binoculars and monoculars for each student to have one or the other to use on the field trip. The optics and bird guides were generously provided by a grant from the Philanthropic Ventures Foundation [8] in Oakland and the Wood Middle School PTA.
Many of the students also pay attention to the birds they see at the Wood School campus. They have identified crows, ravens, rock pigeons, Canada geese, and several species of gulls. The school garden hosts hummingbirds, California scrub jays, and western bluebirds. On the field trips they learn about the wide variety of shorebirds and waterbirds, including some birds special to Alameda [9], such as least tern [10], snowy plover [11], black skimmer [12], loons, and many more that are hard to find in other places.
[13]The plan is to continue the birding program indefinitely. For some of the students, the experience will be a day outdoors in the fresh air and sunshine, a break from the classroom. For others, it may be a spark that inspires more birding adventures and greater awareness and appreciation of the amazing environment we all depend on.
Doug Henderson has been birding Alameda and the surrounding area for many years and is a member of the Golden Gate Bird Alliance. Marci Nettles is a teacher at Wood School who created the birding program.