President’s Corner August-September 2026

Hope you are getting some birding in. Summer is usually considered the doldrums for our area, but there are some good spots. Over the past few weeks I had excellent fun on Ohlone’s field trip to the Hayward Shoreline, at Del Valle Regional Park, and along the Kings Canyon Trail at the EBMUD Valle Vista Staging Area. 

I want to alert you to a phishing scam that has been hitting some of our members. You may get an email, often supposedly from me saying something like “Gail (our treasurer) is out of town and we urgently need to make a payment for such and such and please go to this website and make a PayPal or Apple Pay purchase to help Ohlone out in this emergency.” This sort of scam is plaguing churches and small non-profits. No one from Ohlone will ever, ever, ever, ever send you an email like this. No matter how legit it looks it is a scam. If you get such an email or any email from an Ohlone member that looks strange do not respond, do not click on any links, simply delete it. 

Have you been using AI in birding? I just did recently. I set up a spreadsheet with the birds I still need to see in the ABA area. I didn’t include accidentals or vagrants, but only birds seen with some regularity. That gave me about 100 birds. I then listed the state or region where the subject bird was most likely to be found. Then I sorted based on state or region. Then I asked ChatGPT where was the best place to go see such and such bird. I added that to the spreadsheet and then sorted on this final location. That gave me the places to go where I had the greatest chance of seeing the most life birds. What did I learn? Best is Monterey offshore, with seven life birds, Madera Canyon, and offshore Cape Hatteras tied with six, Barrow, Alaska, is next with four, and finally, Witless Bay in Newfoundland with three. 

What about Pygmy Nuthatch? Best bet is the campground at Mount Pinos in the Tehachapi Mountains, but Calaveras Big Trees, and Crane Flat in Yosemite are also good bets. In our area it recommends Tilden Nature Area, a spot I tried several times. 

Looks like a field trip is coming up.