Latest Updates

🦉🦋🌱 Volunteer Tomorrow & in November & Milkweed Seeds

Monday  - October 28th, 2024

We've only got 4 volunteers signed up to weed Burrowing Owl Billows in Shoreline Park, Mountain View, CA tomorrow:


Tuesday, October 29th, 9-11am


If you'd like to join, below are the requirements:

 The rest of the tools, such as shovels, pick axes, wheelbarrows, etc. will be provided. 

 Gloves will be provided as well but it's highly recommended you bring your own.


The next volunteer date is:


Tuesday, November 19th, 9-11am


If you'd like to sign up for either or both, email me back so I can send you the email with the waiver to sign and more instructions on where to meet.


If you'd like to join the Milkweeds for Monarchs project, Mary-Sonja has narrow leaf milkweed seeds she's collected that she can give you to get started! Let me know if you'd like to connect.

🦉🦋🌱 Check out yesterday's recording & volunteer 10/29 

Friday  - October 11th, 2024

The board UNANIMOUSLY voted to consider the petition to list the Western burrowing owl as endangered--not just in select regions but in the entire state of California. Of the 31 people who attended to testify, only 1 person was in opposition. He was some corporate guy representing mass farming of nonnative crops. He had no real gumption, but everyone else in support of the owls did. ❤️


Nice work, volunteers who testified and emailed comments! We did it!! 🥳 🙌


✨The next onsite volunteer event at Burrowing Owl Billows in Shoreline Park, Mountain View, CA is


Tuesday, October 29th, 9-11am


If you'd like to join, below are the requirements:

 The rest of the tools, such as shovels, pick axes, wheelbarrows, etc. will be provided. 

 Gloves will be provided as well but it's highly recommended you bring your own.


If you'd like to sign up, email me back so I can send you the email with the waiver to sign and more instructions on where to meet.

Thanks, Daniel, for taking the group photo and these STELLAR photos of our owls! I especially love this one of the owl looking like he/she is levitating. 🤪🕴🏼

There is also another Biodiversity and Urban Forest Plan "Workshop" run by the San Francisco Estuary Institute. I'll be attending the one online. Do we have volunteers who can attend in person? 


Regardless what their agenda is, like-minded folks will be in attendance and we should see about connecting with them. Out of this process of attending city council and the commissions' meetings, it's the connections I'm making to the other owl-supporters that I'm finding the most valuable. 🤩


Here's their flyer:

The San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) is hosting a community workshop for the Biodiversity and Urban Forest Plan on Thursday, Oct. 17! This is your chance to hear the latest research findings, share your ideas, and help shape the vision and goals of the Plan. Whether you attend virtually or in person, your input is valuable to the future of our urban forests and local biodiversity.

For in-person attendees, Mandarin and Spanish interpretation services will be available.

We look forward to hearing from you and working together to create a sustainable future!

 

Virtual Community Workshop

In-Person Community Workshop

 

Please visit BiodiversityMV.com for more info and to get involved. 


Aisha with an 👁️

🦉❗️Send an Email by Friday to List Our Owls as ENDANGERED!

Wednesday  - October 2nd, 2024

The California Fish & Game Commission will hold a public hearing on October 10th to determine whether listing western burrowing owl populations in California as threatened or endangered under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA) may be warranted. The Commission will likely vote on whether to designate “candidate” status for burrowing owls.

 

If you can, please attend the Thursday, October 10th meeting in Sacramento in person, to speak in support of state listing. 

If you cannot attend in person, you can testify remotely (instructions to join online). 

Or just submit an email before October 4 to the Commission supporting the CESA listing (fgc@fgc.ca.gov).


Here is the email I just sent them:


Dear Commission,


For the last 7 years, I've been saving the burrowing owl in Shoreline Park, Mountain View, California. This is in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the 5 burrowing owl populations up for being listed as "endangered" next week. 


Since 2017, I've organized over 200 unique volunteers to enhance this burrowing owl habitat by planting ~2,050 California native plants and weeding/suppressing countless invasive nonnatives. My volunteers have contributed over 1,340 hours at 68 events, and this doesn't include all the hours I've put in to fundraise, organize, and communicate this project with not just the local community, but globally. Together, in collaboration with biologists Phil Higgins, Ryan Phillips, and their other collaborators, we brought the population of burrowing owls in Shoreline Park from 0 in January 2017 to 44 in June of this year, with a peak population of 51 owls in the summer of 2020. Shoreline Park now has the biggest population of burrowing owls in the South Bay Area.


The community that came together to accomplish this did so by sacrificing their free time, energy, and resources, with some even growing native plants from seeds in pots in their own yards to transplant at this habitat. This kept the project growing even when the local nurseries were hit with the supply chain issues brought on by the lockdown. 


My project has also educated and provided hope to both the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America by being an effective, tangible example for how to save our dying planet.


If you're still not impressed by our efforts and convinced by how much we care about these owls, you should also know that these are our numbers and actions despite our adversaries. 


The City of Mountain View Parks & Rec Department, who manages the park, including the biologist staff, has consistently put up barriers to prevent us from doing more to save our owls. At first it was small jabs like preventing me from scheduling volunteers to come on weekends, so the kids and families could participate, as well as preventing us from using more effective tools--like a power auger--for the brutal manual labor required for this project, but now they just put our full time biologist--Philip Higgins, who has over a decade of experience saving our owls--on leave, which caused our part-time biologist, Ryan Phillips, to quit. 


Since this happened in July, my volunteers and I have been attending Mountain View's City Council meetings in an uproar. The Parks & Rec Department then held a meeting to show us "their plan"--I guess to console us--but "their plan" is to hire an inexperienced contract biologist twice a week. This is a drastic reduction in budget that we've already been seeing the repercussions of: there's been what looks like invasive red foxes in our burrowing owls' habitat. The encroaching tall invasive grasses around their burrows, that are usually mowed regularly by our biologists, provide cover for them to sneak up on and eat our owls. At this rate, we will be back to 0 owls in Shoreline Park in no time.


While the mayor of our city has announced that she'll do an investigation into what's going on with the Parks & Rec Department, if you list the burrowing owl as endangered in our area, you'd give us the leverage we need to do more to save them, so please, I beg you, please help us save them!

Here I am (in the jumpsuit) posing with a cohort of my volunteers, consisting mostly of Googlers alongside my regular volunteers. Shoreline Park is located right next to Google HQ.

Here my volunteers are reaping the rewards of all the hard labor they do: they get to see our owls closer than anyone else can, legally, under the supervision of our expert biologists, Philip Higgins and Ryan Phillips, in the neon vests.

Here's one of our owls, watching us work on their habitat. I'm sure we're like TV to them.

Here you can see the detrimental effects losing our biologists has had on our habitat: there is predator scat in the habitat and the invasive non-native grasses have grown out of control, providing cover for them to kill our owls. The post I circled in red is the same one between the two photos, so you can see for yourself how different the habitat looks when it's actively managed full time by biologists. 


If you'd like to see more about my project, called The Guardian Project, here is my website, documenting its progress from inception through to today.


I will be attending your meeting next week, remotely, where I plan to speak. See you there!



Shani Kleinhaus of Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance also provides these talking points:


🦉 Tell the Commission about any experiences or connections you have with burrowing

owls and why you care about them


🦉 Urge the Commission to designate five imperiled burrowing owl populations (San

Francisco Bay Area, Central-Western California, Southwestern California, Central Valley,

and Southern Desert Range) as candidate species under the California Endangered

Species Act


🦉 Candidate status for these declining owl populations will allow the CA Department of

Fish & Wildlife to conduct a full status review of the species and make an informed

recommendation to the Commission about whether to designate imperiled populations

as threatened or endangered species


🦉 Burrowing owls were once widespread throughout California but have suffered

significant habitat loss due to conversion of grasslands to sprawl development and

eradication of ground squirrels.


🦉 Burrowing owls have been eliminated as a breeding species or are near extirpation in

nearly one-third of their former range in California.


🦉 Statewide surveys showed a 60% decline in California’s burrowing owl colonies from the

1980s to the early 1990s, and a further 11% decline in breeding pairs by 2007. Loss of

breeding colonies has accelerated since 2015.


🦉 Outside of the Imperial Valley, only 2,500 or fewer breeding pairs of burrowing owls

remain in the state.


🦉 We are on a trajectory to lose breeding burrowing owl populations entirely from the San

Francisco Bay Area, Central Coast, and Southwestern California; breeding owls are also

rapidly declining in the Central Valley and southern desert regions.


🦉 The relatively large burrowing owl population in the Imperial Valley does not serve as a

dispersal source to augment isolated or depleted owl populations elsewhere in the state.

Extensive data from banded burrowing owls shows very little evidence of movements of

resident owls between regional populations in California.


🦉 Since they can live in the margins of infrastructure and agriculture, burrowing owls are

often considered to be adaptable. But they have very specific habitat requirements,

including burrows excavated by ground squirrels; grasslands or arid environments with

short, sparse vegetation; adequate foraging habitat with abundant and available prey;

and opportunities for wintering and dispersal.


🦉 Large burrowing owl colonies on private lands are not being protected, and habitat

requirements are not being met even on many public lands, which is why state listing is

needed.


Aisha with an 👁️

🦉🏢 📧 City Hall Tonight & Email for Burrowing Owls to be Listed as Endangered

Tuesday  - September 24th, 2024

Howdy, folks!


The edit I was working on of the P&R meeting has turned into a plea to share with city hall, the commissions, the newspapers, and all of you, so it's not done yet. 


Let's skip ahead to our action items to save our burrowing owls this week:


The City Council meeting is at 6:30pm TONIGHT in the Council Chambers, or you can Zoom in. 


I'm attending to tell them what I witnessed at the P&R meeting:

It was like watching a stage play where everyone on stage--the commissioners and Brady--were in on a plot together to minimize our concerns, give us praise to distract us, and then continue moving forward with their inadequate plan to "save the owls." They're all uneducated about wildlife, and hide behind their willing ignorance to avoid responsibility. They just don't care. They looked at Brady for what to do about our complaints, but Brady is moving forward with a contract biologist 2 times a week despite our complaints. They're doing this to defund our owls in favor of whatever else they're interested in funding, which is probably golf.


My questions for the council are: what can we, as the people, do? Do we need to get owl-advocates on the P&R Commission? Who's responsible for hiring/firing members of the Commission?


What will it take to get the City of Mountain View to prioritize saving our owls?


I'll answer my own question because I doubt anyone at city hall will:


Let's get the burrowing owl listed as ENDANGERED!


Please send an email supporting the endangered species listing for burrowing owls, especially at Shoreline given recent events.


Email Comments before 5:00pm PST Sep 28 to fgc@fgc.ca.gov.


The “Petition to list California Populations of the Western Burrowing Owl as Endangered . . . “ was submitted to the CA Fish and Game Commission (FGC) and deemed to have sufficient information warranting listing.  On Oct 9-10, the Commission will vote whether or not listing burrowing owls as endangered “may be warranted”.


With a  “may be warranted” Commission vote, the owls must be treated as Endangered Species for 1 year, immediately impacting Shoreline Parks & Recreation (Community Service Dept) and landfill operations, typically bulldozers (Public Works Dept), should owls be present due to burrowing owl protections required.


Note: the petition does not propose listing burrowing owls in the entire state of CA as Endangered, just certain populations.  So the management plan should be easier to implement than statewide, from the Commission’s perspective.

Does the following sound familiar?  Stop silencing biologists!

Center for Biological Diversity (the petitioner)

https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/birds/western_burrowing_owl/index.html

“Following 14 years of unsuccessful efforts by the California Burrowing Owl Consortium to protect rapidly declining populations in urbanizing areas, the Center and allies petitioned in 2003 to protect the California population of the owl under the California Endangered Species Act. But the state refused to list the owl, based largely on an inaccurate, inconsistent reporting by the California Department of Fish and Game; documents later obtained by environmental groups revealed the agency had suppressed its own biologist recommendations that the owl be considered for endangered or threatened status.”


Here's more information about attending and/or participating in this pivotal meeting:


Oct 9-10  CA Fish and Game Commission (FGC), Day 2 Oct 10 9:00am, Sacramento

See you in a little over an hour (if you're attending the city hall meeting)!


Aisha with an 👁️

🌱 🦉🦋   Volunteer Tomorrow & Attend City Council Meeting Again!

Monday  - September 23rd, 2024

We've got 4-5 volunteers (Gail, Tracy, Gordon, Melissa, and, maybe Alan) signed up for tomorrow's weeding event in Shoreline Park, Mountain View:


TUESDAY, September 24th, from 9-11am


If you'd like to join them, below are the requirements:

 The rest of the tools, such as shovels, pick axes, wheelbarrows, etc. will be provided. 

 Gloves will be provided as well but it's highly recommended you bring your own.


If you'd like to sign up, email me back so I can send you the email with the waiver to sign and more instructions on where to meet.


Here are our photos from our last event! Thanks, Daniel! 📸

There are more and more sunflowers in each group photo! 🌻

One of our bbs, totally unaware of the drama unfolding between the humans over their fluffy little bodies. 

So round. 😍 How many friggin' bands do our buddies have to wear, esp. now that no one's counting them? 🥺

These are the plants our volunteers grew from seed and transplanted at Burrowing Owl Billows. Because our plants are being watered, we're able to plant year-round. My emails from y'all are scattered, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's Tracy, Melissa, and Gail who contributed these.

I love this shot Daniel did of our milkweed and check out this little hummingbird he captured!

Melissa, weeding like a champ! Check out that gear!

Tracy, Gordon, and Tim posing! 😍


Also tomorrow, we've got another city council meeting at 6:30pm in the Council Chambers or you can Zoom in. I'm currently putting subtitles to, and cutting out the pauses of, the recording of the "Parks & Rec Meeting" we attended so it's more digestible. I'll share that with you in another email.



Aisha with an 👁️

❗️ 🦉🦋   Parks&Rec Meeting ZOOM Link

Wednesday  - September 11th, 2024

I've been informed that there IS a Zoom! Agenda, linked. Thanks, Dash! See you guys there!


This meeting is being conducted with a virtual component. Anyone wishing to address the Commission virtually may join the meeting online at: https://mountainview.zoom.us/j/85027481875 or by dialing (669) 900-9128 and entering Webinar ID: 850 2748 1875.


Aisha with an 👁️

❗️ 🦉🦋   Parks&Rec Meeting TODAY!

Wednesday  - September 11th, 2024

The physical location of the Parks & Rec meeting has changed to city hall!


I already looked at the deck, LINKED, and I'm not happy that our effort has been reduced down to "Volunteer groups." There is also no individual biologist introduced.


It doesn't look like there will be an option to Zoom in, so I'll only be able to see what happens if y'all record it on your phones and/or report back. Please capture evidence that we can bring back to the city council to create another plea with them to bring Phil/Ryan back.


Aisha with an 👁️

🌱 🦉🦋   Volunteer Events & Parks&Rec Meeting Next Week!

Thursday  - September 5th, 2024

I was hoping to get my first video update done for you this week, but, alas, it's taking longer than expected and I don't want you to miss these upcoming key dates!  


NEXT WEEK: 

Tuesday, September 10th

Wednesday, September 11th

Let's start with the volunteer events to weed Burrowing Owl Billows in Shoreline Park. 

The next is:


NEXT WEEK: September 10th, 9-11am

The following events are:

Later this month: September 24th, 9-11am

Next month: October 29th, 9-11am


Until we have biologists onsite again, we'll be weeding with the newer volunteers learning to identify which plants to pull from our experienced volunteers.


If you'd like to sign up, email me back and I'll add you to the volunteer list where you'll receive instructions, including the meeting location, agenda, and THE NEW ONLINE WAIVER TO SIGN.


Thanks, Daniel, for shooting photos at our last event!

Our crew!

Our owls!

Our pollinators!

Last week, August 27th, we spoke at the Mountain View City Council meeting. I was later told by the volunteers who attended in person that the staff of Parks & Rec were there as well. If you missed it, or would like to see it again, here's where they've uploaded the livestream.


Here are our volunteers speaking and their timestamps:

Daniel DeZordo - 11:39

Tim Dobbins - 13:27

Tracy Ferea - 16:36

Me (Aisha Thiessen) - I was a mysterious voice over the speakers 😆 - 34:58

At the end of the last city council meeting, the mayor said they couldn't respond to our comments, but told us to go check out the Parks and Recreation Commission and Urban Forestry Board Meeting. They will be showing us their plans regarding the burrowing owl, and, I assume, responding to what we said at last week's city council meeting.

Their meeting is:


NEXT WEEK: September 11th, 7pm

at Mountain View Community Center, in person, or online: mountainview.legistar.com

I plan on attending this via Zoom. I look forward to seeing what the Parks & Rec staff have to say about how they're going to care for our owls.


Aisha with an 👁️

❗️🌱 🦉🦋   Need volunteers tomorrow & Attend the city council meeting to get Phil back!

Monday  - August 26th, 2024

Howdy, folks!


We've got 2 MAJOR call-to-actions today: 

Scroll down for more details about signing up for one or both of these volunteer opportunities!

Last week's volunteer session went sooo well! It was a beautiful day and it was encouraging to see how knowledgeable and autonomous our volunteers are even without our onsite biologists!

Why does it look like our volunteer crew color purposely coordinated their outfits, and not just with each other, but with Burrowing Owl Billows?  Check out the massive pile of weeds in front of them and the MASSIVE California native sunflowers to their right!


Let's get a closer shot of those sunflowers! WOWZA!

I HAVE to hand it to Archana for being SO THOROUGH with her photography! I love that she even took selfies: the perfect signature for this beautiful collection she shot 


WITH a handful of weeds!

I wanted to do a video update so I could include all the awesome photos she took along with my commentary, but I JUST got a new computer after my last FRIED last week.  That's right, folks. I LOST FOUR TERABYTES OF DATA!!! That's EVERYTHING from the last 5 years. Everything. I know you feel it because most of you have at least dabbled in the tech industry. For now, you can see all the photos the volunteers took and shared with me in this drive folder. Thanks Archana and Tracy!


Also thank you Mathew (the guy with the beard in our group pic) and the new ranger! What's his name? He looks into it.  He's HAULING those weeds!

Thank you, everyone, for making another great event happen!


We need more help because we've only got 4 volunteers (Gail, Tracy, Gordon, Daniel) signed up for our next weeding at Burrowing Owl Billows:


TOMORROW, August 27th, 9-11am


The other events scheduled are:


Tuesday, September 24th, 9-11am

Tuesday, October 29th, 9-11am


If you'd like to sign up, email me back and I'll add you to the volunteer list where you'll receive additional instructions today, including the meeting location, agenda, and THE NEW ONLINE WAIVER TO SIGN!! Thanks, Mathew, for setting that up!  I've been wanting this ever since the first event! 

While I love having Mathew and the new ranger onboard, without our full-time resident city biologist collaborators, our habitat enhancement efforts will only be one of the few projects remaining to save the burrowing owls here in Shoreline Park, which is especially silly given that Shoreline Park now has the highest population of burrowing owls in the South Bay Area because of all our efforts. 


As you may recall from my orientation video, Phil was working on quite a number of other projects in collaboration with other organizations alongside ours, including Santa Clara Audubon Society's "Juvenile Overwintering Program" which is only a part of the Burrowing Owl Preservation Plan. Phil also did projects like regularly mowing the tall invasive grasses between the burrowing owl burrows and our native plantings. Invasive species, like the red fox, can hide in it to creep up on and eat our owls. Tracy captured this gif of what could be a red fox chasing a hare near the project site!


When I first started this project with Phil, there were 0 owls in Burrowing Owl Billows. Then there was 1 owl. Then there were 2 owls. Because Phil was dropping off dead mice at their burrow, that pair mated and had 8 chicks. Here's a comic I made of what happened to those 8 chicks:

As you can see, the first chick was EATEN by an INVASIVE RED FOX, which is probably what's jumping around in Tracy's video. Some volunteers think it could be a coyote, but I've never seen a coyote hop like that and I've seen both of these species move IRL. Red foxes hop. The threat to the owls RIGHT NOW is IMMINENT. We need a knowledgeable full-time biologist prioritizing their care, protection, and productivity STAT. The only one who has years of experience doing this at Shoreline Park is Phil Higgins!


There is a city council meeting tomorrow where we're asking them to bring Phil back. So far, myself, Gail, Daniel, and others who are on the other projects Phil was collaborating with for the owls will be attending. It starts at 5 and may go until 8pm. You can Zoom in, which is what I'm doing, or attend in person, which is preferable if you can. You can speak for 1-minute or simply stand when I do, showing your solidarity and backing my ask without having to utter a word.


If you'd like to attend with us, email me back! I'm creating an email thread to share additional instructions for how to attend the meeting and guidance on what to say if you'd like to speak. It turns out my neighbor knows how to get laws passed by the city council here in Maui. He just changed the law regarding Maui's unsanitary water conditions in the areas where people are swimming and now they have to install a cleaning mechanism using UV light to sanitize them. I'll share his guidance with those who can attend as well.


Aisha with an 👁️

❗️❗️🌱 🦉   Volunteer events cancelled!

Thursday  - July 25th, 2024

Today I got an email from Shoreline Park's Sr. Administration, Aischa Standing Crow, that I'm to cancel the rest of the volunteer events we'd scheduled for this summer because Phil is out of the office. The Shoreline Supervisor, Mathew Silva, will be contacting me in the near future to discuss a timeframe to schedule plantings and weedings. Aischa thinks Phil is okay, but I've been trying to call and email him--even to his personal email--and I haven't heard anything back, so this is all I know for right now. I'll keep you updated.


The good news is that I got a TON of support emailed back to me after I opened up about what I've been going through. I literally could feel the weight lift off my broken back with each response I read and now I feel WAY better. Thank you so SO much. 🥲 8 of you had even signed up to volunteer next week. It's ironic that the event is now cancelled. 🙃


Tracy sent me this TED Talk that I wish I could've watched at the beginning of my injury. I'm passing it on to you for when/if you experience a physical trauma like ours: https://go.ted.com/6Wea


It turns out I've been doing a lot of tactics Jane McGonigal talks about, but the two points she makes that flipped the script for me on how I've been coping with my tragedy are:

For the time being, I'm going to turn my attention to these African penguins held captive at The Hyatt here in Maui. If you'd like to follow along, I just made this 1-minute video update on their current condition here.


Aloha! 🌺

Aisha with an 👁️

❗️🌱 🦉   Need more volunteers for next week's event!

Tuesday  - July 23rd, 2024

Our next volunteer event is next week and we have only 1 volunteer signed up!


9-11am, Tuesday, July 30th


If you'd like to sign up for this event, below are the requirements:

⛏️  The rest of the tools, such as shovels, pick axes, wheelbarrows, etc. will be provided. 

🧤 Gloves will be provided as well but it's highly recommended you bring your own.


If you'd like to sign up, email me back and I'll add you to the volunteer list where you'll receive additional instructions on the meeting location and agenda the day prior!


Aisha Update:

Hey, guys, I am struggling. Not only has my back injury put me in massive debt, but I think I'm being sued for making it up even though I'm still in pain daily. It's become obvious that I possess a level of insanity that is accompanying the pain because I'm not able to complete tasks that I say I will in a timely fashion, and am struggling to prioritize what to do. My support network has almost entirely vanished as well, which I'm discovering is normal for when you sustain life-altering injuries like this. Some say it's because our capitalist culture here in the states causes people to back away from helping those who are hurt, because we are no longer productive and only cost resources instead. It's depressing, so depression is also something I'm struggling with as well. I literally wake up in the middle of the night in so much pain I start screaming and it's only the pounding rain that prevents my neighbors from checking in on me. I do have moments of clarity, like this one here, where the pain subsides and I can manage to do work like send this email and then go to the gym to do my PT's exercises. I keep thinking "I'm getting better" but, honestly, I think that's part of the insanity--the delusional positive outlook I've inherited for survival. It's been a year since my initial injury and I still experience 8/10 levels of pain almost daily. My latest PT says to power through it, but I'm beginning to think that he's encouraging me to do what caused my injury in the first place. I've invested more in my "save the feral cats" effort to cope and have adopted 3 kittens to start my "cat cafe." The shelter is overrun with kittens so helping them is helping me. It helps anchor me when I start experiencing suicidal ideation, because I know no one is going to take care of my cats if I kill myself. Apparently suicide is a common end to a lot of folks who experience what I am, usually after succumbing to pain-medication addictions. This project also helps anchor me and, when all else fails, it's managing this project and sticking around for the cats that keeps me going, so, thank you for keeping me going, those of you who've donated and volunteered. I know a lot of you are skeptical that Jim Carrey is going to show up to help out, and you're skeptical that I can stiltwalk despite this injury, but I just discovered 1/6 of the penguins I've been asking him to help rescue from the Hyatt has died from its captivity there. They're in worse shape than I am. Even though it hurts, I want to finish the stiltwalking campaign I started because I don't know what else to do at this point and I have this unexplainable instinct that he's going to show up if I can just get back up on my stilts, smile through the pain, and keep selling stickers to save the animals. I'm sorry if this is a lot to unload on you, but I'm also not sorry because I wouldn't be unloading if it weren't for these circumstances I just unloaded. Heh.


Anyhoo, please volunteer or donate if you can. It means more to me and my survival than these words express so I'll be putting my gratitude into the art I'm creating for it. 

I'm a bit puffy-eyed from the crying-from-pain session at 2am this morning but awoke to a kitty cuddle puddle. 🥲 I'm embarrassed to share this, because I look terrible, but I also feel it's necessary so you can see that I'm telling you is the truth and a bid for connection. You guys, my kitties, and my desperate belief in myself to make things better are literally my lifelines right now. Thanks again for supporting me!


Aisha with an 👁️

🌱🦉   Next Volunteer Dates for the Rest of the Summer ☀️

Tuesday  - July 16th, 2024

Howdy, folks!

Our next volunteer event is out a couple weeks, but I want you to know about the dates we've scheduled for the rest of the summer:


All events are at Burrowing Owl Billows from 9-11am:

July 30th

August 27th

& September 24th


We're dropping back to once a month until the rains start up again. We'll be focused on combating weeds and prepping the area for the next round of planting.


If you'd like to sign up for any or all these events, below are the requirements:

⛏️  The rest of the tools, such as shovels, pick axes, wheelbarrows, etc. will be provided. 

🧤 Gloves will be provided as well but it's highly recommended you bring your own.


If you'd like to sign up, email me back and I'll add you to the volunteer list where you'll receive additional instructions on the meeting location and agenda the day prior!



Aisha with an 👁️

🦉🌱🦋   Volunteer next week, Tuesday, 9-11am!

Wednesday  - June 12th, 2024

Howzit, folks!  🤙


Stay tuned for how the last volunteer session went. The next volunteer session is:


Next week, Tuesday, 

June 18th from 9-11am 

at Burrowing Owl Billows


If you'd like to join, below are the requirements:

⛏️  The rest of the tools, such as shovels, pick axes, wheelbarrows, etc. will be provided. 

🧤 Gloves will be provided as well but it's highly recommended you bring your own.


If you'd like to sign up, email me back so I can CC you into the instructions I email the day before the event, where Phil, our city's biologist who oversees Shoreline Park's projects, and the other volunteers signed up are.


Now, here's how the last volunteer session went:

Whoo hooo!!! Thanks, Gail, for shooting the group photo and reporting back on how things went! We planted an additional 3 milkweeds grown by Tracy and 35 sunflower & Hooker's evening primrose germinated by Gail, with full sun incubation provided by Li & Tracy's yards (thank you!). It's getting tough to plant now, hot, no rain, dirt like cement, so we'll hold back from planting more until the first rain in the fall.

The volunteer-grown milkweeds planted last year are thriving! They're part of the 180 from the second big planting over sheet mulch.

From Gail: The showies from Watershed Nursery are showing their showiness.  The Watershed narrowleafs are not as strong, so far, but that may change later.  The volunteer grown narrowleafs are winning 2023 planting so far!


That's evidence that the Milkweeds for Monarchs project creates our strongest plants! I'll have to double down on that initiative! Gail connected with a library that hosts a seed giveaway program, so we're going to try contributing some seeds to incentivize more of our community to join us and get involved!

Melissa captured our owls gettin' it ON! Phil says this means their first clutch didn't work out, but, hey, sometimes we need a little practice before we succeed! 🦉🥚🦉


Last month--the month of May--we had approximately 21-23 adult burrowing owls in Shoreline Park. Phil says we have a few individuals moving around, so it's hard to keep track of them. There were also 2 nests with chicks, a total of 11 chicks so far, and at least 3 additional nests with eggs. Even Phil and the other Shoreline Park employees don't have access to all the nests to observe what’s going on. We ask you to keep the locations of the owls secret because there are those who will disrupt them for social media clout! 🤫


Aisha with an 👁️

🦉🌱🦋   Volunteer next week, Tuesday, 9-11am, May 28th

Wednesday  - May 22nd, 2024

Howdy, folks! 🤠


The last volunteer event went SPLENDIDLY even though we changed plans the week of! We planted ~90 plants, but, due to some parking issues with Google I/O--causing a late start--the ground being hard in some places, and it being hot, the volunteers didn't roll out the cardboard or hook up irrigation at Burrowing Owl Billows, so that will be the priority moving into the next event, which is:

 

Next week, 9-11am Tuesday, May 28th


If you'd like to join, below are the requirements:

⛏️  The rest of the tools, such as shovels, pick axes, wheelbarrows, etc. will be provided. 

🧤 Gloves will be provided as well but it's highly recommended you bring your own.


If you'd like to sign up, email me back so I can CC you into the instructions I email the day before the event, where Phil, our city's biologist who oversees Shoreline Park's projects, and the other volunteers signed up are.


Before I jump into sharing photos from the last event, I wanted to make y'all aware of the Burrowing Owl Workshop coming up this summer! I attended this workshop years ago and it's the most thorough and up-to-date download you can get on info about our owls and where we're at with helping them beyond this project. 


There are only a few spots left so please snatch 'em up quick if you're interested! If the workshop fills up, sign up for the wait list, because the organizer, Grant Lyon, said they'll schedule another workshop if there are enough folks signed up on it.


The workshop's dates are:


July 10-12


Here's a link for more information about the workshop and how to register:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/biology-and-management-of-the-western-burrowing-owl-tickets-903254076257


Now onto the photos from the last volunteer event! 

Thank you, Gail, for stepping up as the designated-group-photo-taker! Also, thank you Phil and Daniel for sending me your photos of the event too!

Haha! I love it when you guys hold up the weeds for the shot like trophy hunters hold up their murdered animals. 😂

Phil breaking et dee-own.

Candid shot of y'all cracking into that hard ground.

Here are some of the plants we purchased from Watershed Nursery.

Here are Gail's grown-from-seed plants pre-planting!

If you're a gardener and curious about what we planted, here's a loose list: annual sunflower, hooker's evening primrose, California buckwheat, California rose, narrow leaf milkweed, yampah, & Cleveland sage.

Here's where I'm at working on the next art for y'all that I'll turn into more fundraising swag you can buy from my nonprofit's Etsy. Progress is slow because of my BACK. UGH! I hate it (the injury).

My friend Jen, who was also going to join us, ran a popup shop selling flowers for Mother's Day instead, so I sent her some fundraising swag as a pilot to see if this is a good way to expand the virtual storefront. She sold a patch and two stickers, totalling $20 in donations! Whoo hoo!!!

Remember that you can always just donate. 😁



Aisha with an 👁️

🦉🌱🦋   Volunteer this Saturday to Plant: NEW TIME!

Wednesday  - May 8th, 2024

The new time is: 

9-11am Saturday, May 11th


We've got 9/20 volunteers signed up so far! Here's the RSVP list thus far:

You might notice that Jen and I are no longer on that list. I've had to cancel my trip to help out in person because my back is just... it's just not getting better. I'm still regularly experiencing varying degrees of pain, and sitting, for even short periods, causes exponentially more pain. I thought I'd be better by the time our event came around, but I'm not. I did just see a new physical therapist on Monday... but now I'm in worse pain, so I need to prioritize finding another.


However, I'm proud of how we've already reconfigured the plan:

We cut down the hours because no one volunteered to make and serve a vegan meal, but that's fine! We already planted ~150 natives in the new area, Lake View Land, so we're bringing the grand total to ~240 plants we're adding to Shoreline this planting season.


Phil says there were 22 owls in Shoreline last month! WOW!!!


We need more volunteers because there's LOTS of work! Phil wants to hook up irrigation in addition to the mulching, weeding, and planting that Burrowing Owl Billows needs!


If you'd like to join them, below are the requirements:

 ⛏️ The rest of the tools, such as shovels, pick axes, wheelbarrows, etc. will be provided. 

 🧤 Gloves will be provided as well but it's highly recommended you bring your own.


If you'd like to sign up, email me back so I can CC you into the instructions email I send the day before, where Phil, our city's biologist who oversees Shoreline Park projects, and the other volunteers signed up are.


And now onto celebrating the last volunteer event! Thanks, Gail, for taking these photos! (Oops! Looks like Daniel and Ryan were cut off in the group photo!)

Daniel also took some nice photos of y'all and the work, but my email is out of room! You can see all the photos prepping for the 11th planting here.


Alrightay then! Let me know if you'd like to come help out Saturday! It's not often that we're able to book weekends for volunteer work.



Aisha with an 👁️

🦉🌱🦋   More volunteers for next week? Also, photos from last time at Lake View Land!

Thursday  - April 25th, 2024

Happy belated Earth Day! 🌎


We've got 9 volunteers signed up for next week:


TUESDAY, April 30th, from 9-11am


to save the burrowing owl and migratory monarch butterfly in Shoreline Park, Mountain View, through a habitat enhancement planting at Lake View Land!


Here's who, incase you can't remember whether you've RSVP'd:

If you'd like to join them, below are the requirements:

 ⛏️ The rest of the tools, such as shovels, pick axes, wheelbarrows, etc. will be provided. 

 🧤 Gloves will be provided as well but it's highly recommended you bring your own.


If you'd like to sign up, email me back so I can send you the email with more instructions on where to meet the day before. We do this to keep the exact locations of the hours secret from those who'd harm them. 


You will be completing Google's grant planting with Phil, Mountain View City's Biologist, at the new burrowing owl and monarch habitat enhancement site on the other side of the park from Burrowing Owl Billows. This will give the owls and butterflies more space between their resources, so they have more options to avoid predation and find food.


Here are photos from the last volunteer event!

Our volunteers! Nicely positioned and framed with the vehicle and tools, guys! Taken by Gail! Thank you so much, Gail! 

Look at this lovely prep work the volunteers did at previous sessions. We added the cardboard rolls and wood chips and Phil's team added the irrigation!

Phil's giving instructions. The plants look HEALTHY!

Looks like you guys used the used containers to indicate where to place plants?

Everyone hard at work!

Look how organized this is! I can tell you've planted the same species in clumps. We do this so pollinators don't have to travel as far to get to more of the same flowers, which increases their pollination effectiveness by reducing their travel time and energy spent.

Here's a gift the city/Google bought the volunteers! It's beautifully packaged! I would definitely not call what you guys did a "small act" by any means, especially those of you who've attended multiple volunteer events over the years, but I agree you've had a HUGE impact!


So, obviously, I have to upstage Google, especially after what they did to me. I'm finding out now that I'm seeing therapists outside of worker's comp that a lot of my stress, that contributed to my back injury, comes from having worked there, STILL.


I'll get the final plant count from Phil next week, but he last told me that y'all are planting 130 plants with Google's money at Lake View Land. When I come to volunteer with you, I'll be flying into SoCal to meet up with my friend and re-occurring volunteer Jen to pick up 150-200 plants directly from the wholesale nurseries for us to plant at Burrowing Owl Billows on May 11th using my nonprofit's funds, which come from donations, my Shopify, and my Etsy. We could definitely use more funds, so her and I will also shoot social media content to help raise them, but please donate if you can, and thanks for donating if you did! 

We will also be prepping a vegan meal for the volunteers that day as it'll be a 4-hour day on a Saturday! I will also bring you gifts... to upstage Google's gifts! Hey, it's all good competition to save our precious burrowing owls and migratory monarch butterflies.


We only have 4 volunteers signed up for May 11th so far--Jen, Gail, Barbara, and myself--so let me know if you want to join us!


Coo coo!


Aisha with an 👁️

🦉🌱🦋  Volunteer Session this Month and Next!

Thursday  - April 4th, 2024

Howdy, folks! 🙋🏽‍♀️


I'm lovin' this creative group photo Tracy captured of the volunteer crew at our last event!

They're looking at our burrowing owls, in case you couldn't tell. 


Here's Gail planting about 10 Hooker's Evening Primrose she grew at home. Join us in growing milkweed (or other natives) from seed for transplanting at Burrowing Owl Billows by signing up for Milkweeds for Monarchs (site).

Looks like Ryan is dumping some wood chips to be used to smother invasive nonnative weeds.

Here the volunteers are pulling weeds!

Linda captured these next photos of our volunteers and plants.

Here are some close ups of our drip irrigation system watering some of our plants.


March had a total of 25 burrowing owls in Shoreline Park!


PSA⚠️ If you're sharing this project on social media/with others, be sure to also inform them how the issue with everyone knowing the location of the owls is that there are then photographers, birders, and listers (people who play some kind of "bird bingo" by seeing how many bird species they can find) who swarm them, which can stress them out and disrupt their mating patterns. It may not seem like a big deal if it's just you and your camera, but you don't see how many of you there are. The birds do. It's one photographer after the next and it's not like any of these people are donating or volunteering on this project to help save them. Phil and Ryan have already caught 2 people climbing over the first fence since the last volunteer event. This is exactly the kind of behavior that hurts our owls' ability to survive and we must change our culture to be less selfish and more respectful if we hope to save them.


What do you do if you see this behavior in person? Approach them to educate them, but also take your camera phone out and record them. Even better, upload it to social media to spread the word. It's not just about dissuading bad players through community pressure, but also showing them what it feels like. You can also call the Shoreline Park ranger: 650-930-6655


I am by no means the best at it yet, but here's the most recent time I stopped tourist from harassing Hawaii's endangered sea turtles. There's a war happening in the comments, but this is a good thing, because it means more people are becoming more aware of why it's no ok to harass our endangered species. The biggest issue I see right now is that people don't even know our sea turtles are endangered or protected by law.


Now are you stoked to sign up or what? 🤪

THIS MONTH!


Volunteer events are:


Tuesday, April 16th, from 9-11am


and


Tuesday, April 30th, from 9-11am


We currently have 4/15 volunteers signed up for both events: Gail, Tracy, Gordon, and Tim.


If you'd like to join them, below are the requirements:

 ⛏️ The rest of the tools, such as shovels, pick axes, wheelbarrows, etc. will be provided. 

 🧤 Gloves will be provided as well but it's highly recommended you bring your own.

I'll be coming back to Mountain View to visit my family and join you in a 4-hour volunteer session on a weekend! YAY! For those of you who haven't been able to make the weekday events, this event is for you! I'll be cooking up a vegan meal as a snack midway through our volunteer session to treat you as well.


NEXT MONTH!


The volunteer event is:


SATURDAY, May 11th, from 8am-Noon


If you'd like to sign up, email me back so I can CC you into the instructions email that I send the day before, where Phil, our city's biologist, and the other volunteers signed up are. 


The plan for this month is that Phil has ordered ~140 native plants, about 50% of them milkweeds, to be planted at the new site Lake View Land, but that is TBD depending on when his team can get irrigation set up. The funding for these plants comes from Google. 


I'll be buying more plants for us to plant at Burrowing Owl Billows in May using my nonprofit's funds, which come from donations, my Shopify, and my Etsy.



Aisha with an 👁️

🦉🌱🦋  Volunteer next week Tuesday!

Monday  - March 18th, 2024

Happy birthday to me (yesterday)! 🥳🍀🐉


Dan sent these lovely pictures of y'all and our owls yesterday! Best. Gift. Everrrrrrr. 🤩

Look how tall the invasive nonnative grass has gotten (on our right) and what it looks like where our volunteers have cleared it (on our left)!

Perfectly camouflaged and cute. 🦉

Which is the rock and which is the owl? I bet you can't tell from a distance!


We're rocking this 2x/month schedule with another volunteer event next week, but I've only got 3 volunteers signed up so far (Gail, Tracy, and Gordon)! 


We need more volunteers to help weed at Burrowing Owl Billows! Here's when:


NEXT WEEK!

Tuesday, March 26th, from 9-11am


If you'd like to join them, below are the requirements:

 ⛏️ The rest of the tools, such as shovels, pick axes, wheelbarrows, etc. will be provided. 

 🧤 Gloves will be provided as well but it's highly recommended you bring your own.


If you'd like to sign up, email me back so I can CC you into the instructions email that I send the day before, where Phil, our city's biologist, and the other volunteers signed up are.


We've already scheduled next month's events as well, so you can RSVP to these too. They are all on Tuesdays, from 9-11am:


April 16th, April 30th


So far, only Tracy and Gordon have RSVP'd to these!


Aisha with an 👁️

🦉🌱🦋  Urgently need more volunteers for Monday next week!

Thursday  - March 7th, 2024

Howdy, folks! 🤠


We've got our next volunteer event coming up QUICK and we've only got 2 volunteers signed up so far (Gail and Lutz)! 


We need more volunteers to help weed at Burrowing Owl Billows! Here's when:


NEXT WEEK!

Monday, March 11th, from 9-11am


If you'd like to join them, below are the requirements:

 ⛏️ The rest of the tools, such as shovels, pick axes, wheelbarrows, etc. will be provided. 

 🧤 Gloves will be provided as well but it's highly recommended you bring your own.


If you'd like to sign up, email me back so I can CC you into the instructions email I send the day before, where. Phil, our city's biologist, and the other volunteers signed up are.


We've already scheduled the next few events as well, so you can RSVP to these too. They are all on Tuesdays, from 9-11am:


March 26th, April 16th, April 30th


Here are the photos Dan took of our volunteer crew at our last event as well as one of our precious owls, watching! 👀

Palo Alto Online just came out with an article about our babies.  They're in big trouble and we're all on the frontlines of saving them!


Thanks, Susan, for sharing this article with me so I can share it with everyone else too!

California commission urged to protect ‘imperiled’ western burrowing owls

A California burrowing owl. Courtesy Scott and Heather Artis/Center for Biological Diversity via Bay City News.

Environmental advocates on Tuesday, March 5, urged the California Fish and Game Commission to protect the ‘imperiled’ populations of the western burrowing owl under the state’s Endangered Species Act.

Under a petition sent to the FGC, conservation groups sought endangered status for burrowing owls in southwestern California, central-western California and the San Francisco Bay Area, and threatened status for burrowing owls in the Central Valley and southern desert range.

“These fascinating ground-dwelling owls need relief from being bulldozed or evicted to make way for urban sprawl,” said Jeff Miller, a senior conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “I’ve witnessed the disappearance of burrowing owls from much of California over the past two decades, and it pains me to watch their extinction trajectory. They need immediate protections if we want to keep these owls around to grace our grasslands and open spaces.”

The burrowing owl — the only owl species that nests and roosts underground — was widespread before in California and commonly nested in grasslands but they have suffered significant habitat loss due to urban development, conversion of grasslands to agricultural lands, and large-scale wind and solar energy infrastructure. They get also killed by rodenticides and collisions with wind turbines and cars, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.

“When a formerly common species disappears from our landscape, what does it say about the health of our ecosystems? Abundant burrowing owls once brought so much joy to residents of our valley, but development has pushed them to the brink of extinction,” said Shani Kleinhaus of the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society.

‘When a formerly common species disappears from our landscape, what does it say about the health of our ecosystems? Abundant burrowing owls once brought so much joy to residents of our valley, but development has pushed them to the brink of extinction.’

Shani Kleinhaus, Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society

Under the California Endangered Species Act, state and local agencies would be mandated to address threats including the end the state policy that allows owls to be evicted from lands slated for development and requiring adequate mitigation for habitat loss, conservation groups said.

To prevent the total disappearance of burrowing owls from California, advocates emphasize the need for state planning efforts and direct intervention to boost the population of the species.

Burrowing owls at Shoreline Park in Mountain View. Courtesy Tom Grey.

“State protections are urgently needed since the environmental review process hasn’t meaningfully protected or conserved burrowing owls,” said Catherine Portman with the Burrowing Owl Preservation Society. “We’ve tried to get mitigation for owl habitat destroyed by scores of development projects in Yolo County, but owl colonies are routinely evicted without requiring habitat protections. For example, 103 acres of prime burrowing owl breeding habitat in Yolo County were developed in 2015 in exchange for only 19.5 acres at a mitigation bank that has never hosted nesting owls.”

According to conservation groups, the current state policy allows burrowing owls to be “passively excluded from breeding sites during the non-breeding season to accommodate urban development. They stressed that many evicted owls do not survive and rarely do they successfully breed elsewhere.

“In mere decades, California has seen the decimation of formerly thriving populations of burrowing owls, once one of the more common birds in California,” said Scott Artis with Urban Bird Foundation. “These unique underground owls, with a life history fine-tuned over millions of years, are now in a fight for survival and need increased state protections without delay.”

Large solar and wind projects are also killing and displacing lots of burrowing owls in California each year, advocates said.

“Increased renewable energy development to mitigate climate change impacts should not exacerbate the biodiversity crisis or come at the expense of thriving burrowing owl populations,” said Pamela Flick, California program director with Defenders of Wildlife. “Unfortunately, the existing policy framework has not proven adequate to protect these charismatic owls, so legal protections under the California Endangered Species Act are now urgently needed.”

A burrowing owl at Shoreline Park in Mountain View. Courtesy Tom Grey.

According to environmental groups, burrowing owls are nearing “localized extinction” in the Bay Area, where fewer than 25 breeding pairs remain. About 225 breeding pairs are estimated in central-western and southwestern California, and fewer than 1,500 breeding pairs in the southern Central Valley.

🦉🌱🦋  Volunteer next week, Tuesday & Two more events in March!

Tuesday  - February 20th, 2024

Happy President's Day! 🇺🇸


The bar's been set real low, so I'm now thinking I have a shot at it. 🤪


️⭐️ If you're new: You can catch up on The Guardian Project on our website and learn more about burrowing owls from this music video!


The next event you can sign up for to help weed and prep our project sites within Shoreline Park for our Spring planting is:


NEXT WEEK!

Tuesday, February 27th, from 9-11am


We've got 5 volunteers signed up so far (Gail, Tim, Li, Eric, and Michael)! If you'd like to join them, below are the requirements:

 ⛏️ The rest of the tools, such as shovels, pick axes, wheelbarrows, etc. will be provided. 

 🧤 Gloves will be provided as well but it's highly recommended you bring your own.


If you'd like to sign up, email me back so I can CC you into the instructions email I send the day before, where Phil, our city's biologist, and the other volunteers signed up are.


We've already scheduled next month's volunteer sessions as well, so you can RSVP now to those too:


NEXT MONTH!

Monday, March 11th, from 9-11am


and


Tuesday, March 26th, from 9-11am


Now onto what happened at our last event!


Check out this MASSIVE pile of weeds our volunteer crew uprooted! WELL DONE, GUYS! 🤩

Thanks for making sure we got the group shot, Melissa!


Woooooow! Here you can see more piles of their weeds, shot by Tracy.

Here's a candid shot of our volunteer crew at work at Burrowing Owl Billows, also taken by Melissa.

Another candid shot by Tracy. Nice suspenders, Alan. 😎

Phil surveys the area still in need of weeding (📷: Melissa).

Those orange flags behind Phil are where Gail planted 11 native sunflowers she germinated from seeds she collected from Burrowing Owl Billows in October. 

They're tiny but they're there! (📷: Tracy!)


She sprinkled crushed eggshells around them, which should help keep those pesky snails away and provide additional nutrients to her plants as they break down. Please bring more eggshells if you've got them so we can try this with more of our plants!


Those trays are Gail's sunflowers before transplantation (📷: Melissa).

 If you're a gardener and thinking, "I want to grow native plants to transplant for the burrowing owls/monarchs at Shoreline Park!" head on over to our Milkweeds for Monarchs site and join the mailing list!


Daniel, Gail, Melissa, and Phil all brought to my attention that our milkweeds are germinating early! Phil says it's "unusual for this time of year." Daniel says, "Avoiding the spots with milkweed root systems is the toughest thing to deal with right now." We're hoping not to get a hard frost that could damage them while they're at their most sensitive state of growth. This weather is WHACK!

You can do it, little buddy!   (📷: Phil)


Melissa captured our deity, ur, I mean, owl, watching them work. Coo coo!

Another owl watching! They saw three owls, one solo and a pair. 

Tracy recorded this video of a queen bumblebee pollinating blue witch flowers with Gail and Phil weeding in the background.

Aisha's Update: I'm almost over the constant pain I've been enduring from the back injury I sustained in July at my mermaid job last year! Whoo hoo! As such, I started substitute teaching last week. After a kid was pulled out of my class by police for pretending to bring a gun to school, and another kid, named Patrick, just like my stalker, if you can recall, started stalking me after I called security on him for hurting other students, I am now looking into talking to the mayor to see what needs to happen for these schools to get the mental health services and positive socialization classes they need to prevent future criminals. Never a dull moment in Maui, that's for sure!

Aisha with an 👁️

🦉🌱🦋  We need volunteers to WEED at Burrowing Owl Billows this month!

Tuesday  - February 6th, 2024

Howdy!


We've scheduled 2 volunteer events this month because Burrowing Owl Billows needs some major weeding after this rain storm! What do we know about what happens after it rains? The invasive nonnative weeds EXPLOOOOODE and choke out our plants for resources, but it also gets easier to pull them out of the soaked soil!


Here are the dates/times:


Monday, February 12th, from 9-11am (next week!)


and


Tuesday, February 27th, from 9-11am


Here are the requirements:

 ⛏️ The rest of the tools, such as shovels, pick axes, wheelbarrows, etc. will be provided. 

 🧤 Gloves will be provided as well but it's highly recommended you bring your own.


If you'd like to sign up, email me back so I can add you to the roster. I'll create a separate thread just for volunteers signed up to connect you with the others who have and everyone additional directions!


Also, we're going to try sprinkling crushed eggshells around our plants to prevent snails from eating them! They'll also give our plants a calcium boost! Please save your eggshells and, if you have access to a corporate cafeteria where they may be using eggs in bulk, you'd be a hero if you grabbed their eggshells!

Thank you to our volunteers from January 30th's event at Lake View Land! Phil estimated there to be about 18 owls last month.

We've got some charades going on in this next photo: It looks like we're loving these new wheelbarrows! 🤪 I think Ryan may be fishing for something off frame...

Thanks, Daniel, for organizing the group photo and Gail for taking it!


Tracy snapped this photo of the crew laying down cardboard and mulch to suppress the invasive nonnative weeds to prep for our planting this upcoming spring.

Li got this photo of the entire area completely covered in mulch! Good job, everyone!

There were a couple curiosities at the site, including this "slime mold," identified by Heidi as a "Dog Sick Slime Mold," not to be confused with a "Dog Vomit Slime Mold," and praying mantis egg!

Additional information about slime molds from Heidi, because I did not know, either, that these are even a thing: I am a BIG slime mold fan! I love this organism. It feeds on bacteria, fungi and decaying organic matter (hence its presence on the chips pile). It is a soil-dwelling amoeba, a brainless, single-celled organism. Not dangerous. It belongs to the kingdom "Protista". Slime molds have been studied for their unusual behavior, including their ability to navigate mazes and solve complex problems despite lacking a nervous system. They love oatmeal and can be trained!


WHAT! So cool! 

And then there's this mantis egg both Gail and Tracy photographed! It has a hard shell, like insulation foam that has hardened. 


Daniel, our regular wildlife photographer, also captured these beauties from the new project site:

A pied-billed grebe!

A black-tailed jackrabbit!

A snowy egret!

A... CAT?! This feral cat has avoided all of Shoreline's trap for over a year! I've been working on figuring out the issue with feral cats here in Maui. Once I build out the project more in a presentable way I'll share it with y'all!


I had to reduce the file sizes of the photos and I couldn't include them all, so you can find the full-res versions and collection of all the lovely photos our volunteers took here.


We could use help getting more volunteers this month for weeding! I post to Nextdoor when I send these emails out to you guys, but if you also do this and bring it up with your other communities, I'm sure we'd get more sign ups! There's gonna be A LOT of weeds to pull!



Aisha with an 👁️

🦉🌱🦋  Next Volunteer Event: January 30th, 9-11am

Wednesday  - January 17th, 2024

Our January session is still on! 


Phil Higgins, Mountain View City's biologist, just wanted to give us a heads up about the new centralized, online volunteer-system that will be required for signing up for future events once his division migrates over. It hasn't yet, so we will continue onward as usual!


Here's a couple photos of our volunteers mulching the new project site, nicknamed "Lakeview Land." We need to apply a few more layers here in preparation for our spring planting.

I believe their sign says "Shoreline Community." Unofficially, y'all have been a part of "The Guardian Project," which is the part of the community I've been organizing.


Phil reported an estimated total of 25 burrowing owls residing at Shoreline Park at our last event! 


Our next volunteer session is:


Tuesday, January 30th, from 9-11am


I am intentionally scheduling the last Tuesday of each month at the same time so y'all can more predictably plan your schedules!


Here are the volunteer requirements:

 ⛏️ The rest of the tools, such as shovels, pick axes, wheelbarrows, etc. will be provided. 

 🧤 Gloves will be provided as well but it's highly recommended you bring your own.


 WE ARE NOT GOING TO BE AT BURROWING OWL BILLOWS


We will be at the new area, Lakeview Land, which is on the opposite side of Shoreline from Burrowing Owl Billows.


If you'd like to sign up, email me back so I can add you to the roster. I'll create a separate thread just for volunteers signed up to provide you with directions on where to meet.



Aisha with an 👁️

🦉🌱🦋  Next Volunteer Event... 

Wednesday  - January 17th, 2024

Happy New Year, Volunteers! 🥳


I'd mentioned previously that the next event at Shoreline Park, Mountain View is January 30th, but Phil just told me the city is doing an overhaul of their volunteer system, which will include online waivers and police station fingerprinting! Yay for community safety and future convenience, but boo for more process when we just wanna weed and plant!


A couple of you reached out wanting to sign up, so I wanted to let you know to wait until I get a greenlight from Phil with instructions about the new process to share with you.


In the meantime, enjoy this video I made of my burrowing owl rock:

Aisha with an 👁️