A few days after I moved to Alameda, I set out on an exploratory walk of nearby Crown Beach. As I continued south on Shoreline Drive, past the bowling alley and apartments buildings and onto the sliver of a trail between a row of houses and the San Francisco Bay, my jaw actually dropped at the sight of hundreds of shorebirds—marbled godwits and western sandpipers, avocets and black-necked stilts, willets and black-bellied plovers—who were dabbling in the mudflats between the beach and Bay Farm Island bridge. A lifelong bird lover, I felt as if I had discovered gold.
What I’d discovered was the Elsie Roemer Bird Sanctuary, which to the many migratory shorebirds who flock here each winter, and the bird-loving humans who watch them, is as good as gold. I loved the place so much that my husband and I got married on its south platform in 2012! Flash forward to this fall, when I happened upon something else special there, a rare and golden-toned sharp-tailed sandpiper (Calidris acuminata).
I’d been traveling for much of the fall. Friday, October 24, was the first day I had some time to visit the bird sanctuary in more than a month. The flat and somewhat ordinary looking stretch of marshland is one of the few remaining salt marshes in the San Francisco Bay, providing vital habitat for many wildlife species. According to eBird data, more than 200 bird species, from Anna’s hummingbirds to bald eagles have been observed at the sanctuary, and it is rightly regarded as a birding hotspot.
But long before the advent of eBird, Elsie Roemer (1892-1991) was submitting records of her own monthly bird counts at the site to the California Department of Fish and Game. She’s credited with logging the first record of least terns, an endangered species, at Oakland Airport. By the time Roemer and a band of like-minded birders protested, lobbied, and sued to save Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline as well as her namesake Alameda sanctuary, more than 80% of the San Francisco Bay’s marshland had been filled and drained for various developments.
Even though it’s now a familiar place to me, I was stunned anew by the beauty of the shoreline as I stepped on the trail that runs through the marsh. Large flocks of black-necked stilt, dunlin, willet and marbled godwit, and a small group of black oystercatcher were hunkered down at water’s edge, which wasn’t far from the trail as the Bay was filling, a couple of hours from high tide. Rain was forecast for the next day and the sky was streaked with clouds, filtering the light in such a way that clear details and colors of birds were visible even without the help of my binoculars.
I started an eBird checklist, and began walking slowly south of the Broadway entrance, scanning the flocks and counting individuals of each species I identified, idly wondering if I might see a peregrine falcon out hunting. I saw one or two people as I started out but I was alone on the trail, midway between the viewing platforms, when I noticed a shorebird with a more golden appearance relative to the muted gray colors of nearby dunlin and willet. I might have overlooked it, but it was moving apart from the other birds, slightly toward me on the sand, and I was able to get a clear look at its reddish-brown cap and a very distinct white eye stripe (supercilium). In addition to its color, it also appeared leggier and slightly more upright than the similarly-sized (about 7 inches) dunlin. Its bill was straighter relative to the notably droopy bill of dunlin, and seemed shorter relative to the willet.
This was not a bird that I knew.
I quickly scrolled through the eBird and Merlin Bird ID apps on my iPhone to see what other sandpiper it might be. eBird came up with several rare but possible species including sharp-tailed sandpiper and pectoral sandpiper—backed by the Merlin app (which also has a “likely bird” feature).
I called up both species on Birds of the World, clicked through the image gallery for a sharp-tailed sandpiper, and stopped at the photo of a juvenile bird. Everything about the bird in front of me, from its buffy breast, rufous cap, white eye stripe and eye ring—all of which I could see even without binoculars—lined up with the photo and the description of a juvenile sharp-tailed sandpiper. I got my binoculars on it again as it flew away and out of sight, noting its highly patterned back and the white flanks of its tail. Then I consulted my National Geographic Field Guide to Birds of the US and Canada, whose illustrations and description, again, squared up with my observations.
I did hesitate a moment before adding “1 sharp-tailed sandpiper” to my eBird list. Because it was a rarely sighted bird, a request for more information popped up on the eBird app. It’s ideal to include a photo and/or audio recording to confirm a rare bird sighting, especially if no one else has seen it, but I didn’t even get a fuzzy iPhone photo! The bird had been silent throughout the encounter, so I couldn’t offer a description of what it sounded like either.
Nonetheless, I went ahead and noted what I’d observed and where—including that I hoped someone else would see the bird and get a photo. I knew some people might be very dubious of my ID and fully expected a follow-up email from an eBird reviewer, challenging my call.
When I saw my observation come through on the Alameda County Rare Bird Alert, I again wondered if anyone would follow up on my sighting. Then I went about my day.
Later, I spent a little time looking through historic records of sharp-tailed sandpiper sightings on eBird, surprised to see that the last Alameda record for the species was at Elsie Roemer… back in 1988! Digging through more information about the bird, I understood why. Long-distance migrants, sharp-tailed sandpipers nest in the Siberian tundra and then spend the rest of the year in Australasia and Australia. According to Birds of the World, these medium-sized shorebirds “migrate south on a broad front from eastern Russia to central Japan, south through eastern Mongolia and eastern China, and then onwards to the Philippines, western and central Micronesia, and New Guinea before reaching the wintering grounds, which are predominantly in Australia.”
But first-year birds—juveniles—do something different, first flying more than 1,400 miles to Alaska in late August, where they fatten up and stage for their first southward migration, a more than 6,000-mile journey that takes them toward Hawaii, onward to the Solomon islands, and finally to their non-breeding grounds. Alameda is very much not on their regularly scheduled itinerary! Still, any photo I saw matched up with the image of the bird at Elsie Roemer now lodged in my memory.
Shortly after my deep dive on the species, I received an email from the regional Christmas Bird Count coordinator for Golden Gate Bird Alliance, congratulating me on my find. I thanked her, noting again my hope that someone would see it and get a photo.
“LOTS of people with good cameras got photos this afternoon,” she quickly replied.
Unbeknownst to me (and to my relief) several area birders saw the rare bird alert and went to see if they could find the sharp-tailed sandpiper for themselves. And find it they did, photographing it from many angles and thoroughly confirming my initial ID. Instead of being scolded by the local eBird reviewer, I received a thank you note, noting that the sighting was a continental rarity.
Over the subsequent days, I received more thanks as the Elsie Roemer trails filled with avid birders aiming to re-find and add this remarkable species, who stuck around the sanctuary for at least a few more days, to their life lists. But the true debt of gratitude is owed to Elsie Roemer for her foresight and steadfastness in fighting to preserve this bit of marshland that continues to provide a safe place to land for so many birds, including this extraordinary sharp-tailed sandpiper.
Songwriter and birder Deborah Crooks is a member of the Golden Gate Bird Alliance and its Alameda Conservation Committee, Friends of the Alameda Wildlife Reserve, as well as a longtime hawkwatcher for the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory.
This article is part of a series written by Friends of the Alameda Wildlife Reserve (FAWR) members, FAWR is a Conservation Committee of Golden Gate Bird Alliance (formerly Audubon). To find out more about birds and GGBA’s free guided trips see www.goldengatebirdalliance.org
