San Francisco’s Recreation and Parks Department (SFRPD) thinks the breeding season for birds is December to May. That’s according to an application the SF Rec and Park Department made to California Fish and Game (in the context of a streambed alteration permit for Islais Creek in Glen Canyon).

Someone forgot to tell the birds. Here it is, June 9th, and the American Robin below – raising its family in Glen Canyon – clearly hasn’t got its chicks out of the nest yet. Maybe it’s the economy…

More seriously: We urge SFRPD to recognize that the San Francisco breeding season lasts throughout the summer, and respect that. The Significant Natural Reasource Areas Management Plan (SNRAMP, “Sin-Ramp”) seems to recognize that  it’s only in August that they’ll be done: It quotes February 1- Aug 31 as the  breeding season.

Until then, working in wildlife areas – which includes most of the wilder areas of our parks – is likely to destroy wildlife families.

.[ETA: A HEART-WARMING STORY FROM ATHERTON

We just read a heart-warming story from WildRescue about re-nesting two red-shouldered hawk chicks on June 5. It happened in Atherton, an hour down the peninsula from San Francisco.  Two hawk babies survived a fall from their nest, and the rescuers were able to successfully re-nest the youngsters in the same tree, checking to make sure the parents were still in the area.

(To read the whole story, CLICK HERE.)

What was not so heart-warming was how it happened: a huge eucalyptus tree was being trimmed, and the tree-trimmers accidentally cut off the branch supporting the nest. The company responsibly took the chicks to the Peninsula Humane Society, who called Wildlife Rescue; and later worked with Wildlife Rescue to place the baby hawks back in the tree.

But it didn’t have to happen. What it underlines is this:

PLEASE, ANYONE WHO IS PLANNING TO DO TREE WORK, HOLD OFF UNTIL SEPTEMBER !

Had those been songbirds rather than hawks, would they have even survived?]