I'll have to do this. "Next month’s bird walk at Salesforce Park is scheduled for 8-9 a.m. Aug. 7."
By Karlos Díaz Lawrence, Staff writer July 9, 2024 - San Francisco Chronicle
“Do you hear that?”
The question lingers in the air as a tight knot of people scan Salesforce Park, looking for the animal behind a very distinctive tweet.
The first Wednesday of every month, San Francisco bird-watchers gather above the city’s Transbay transit center for a guided walk. They tune out the chaotic symphony of rumbling buses and traffic and turn their focus to a refrain often lost in the urban bustle: chirps. Starting at 8 a.m. from the park’s main plaza, the ornithology enthusiasts march around the 1,400-foot-long park with binoculars ready, in hopes of spotting an Anna’s hummingbird, white-crowned sparrow or one of the many other native species that call the Bay Area home.
The Salesforce Park bird walks are free, open to the public and organized by the Golden Gate Bird Alliance, a Bay Area avian conservation and appreciation group.
To get the general public interested in birds, the alliance arranges over 200 bird watching parties and hikes every year around the region. The walks visit San Francisco locations like the Presidio, Golden Gate Park and Twin Peaks, as well as East Bay spots like Oakland’s Lake Merritt, Berkeley’s Tilden Park and the Hayward Regional Shoreline. Because of its urban setting, however, bird spotting at Salesforce Park resonates with the organization’s ideal that “birds are everywhere” and for everyone.
“For many people, the initial thought (about Salesforce) is that there aren’t many birds there,” said Golden Gate Bird Alliance Executive Director Glenn Phillips. “People might think of pigeons, or maybe the parrots up at Telegraph Hill, but they don’t realize that San Francisco has a very robust bird population. Even a place like Salesforce is a great location to spot some of these birds.”
Initially opened to the public in 2018 after almost a decade of construction, Salesforce Park is still pretty under the radar. A green lung atop the Transbay transit center, “no one seems to believe there is a park on top of a building; they still call it a rooftop garden,” said Nick Rojas, social media content creator for the park. However, 70 feet above the center’s grand hall, the landscape is teeming with nature, home to more than 16,000 plants arranged in 13 unique botanical areas in which resident birds have thrived.
This downtown S.F. park is an unexpected ‘oasis’ for bird-watchers
Greg
The Reuthers inspect a 17th century cannon on yesterday's Presidio Walking Tour with Steve Johnson
