When a movie opens on a bright, summer morning and the main character thrusts open a window, what do we hear? It’s the crow of a rooster or the cheerful tweeting of birds. How about in a dystopian novel, when someone emerges from a bunker after years underground? What might our protagonist notice, as a signal that it’s safe outside? Birdsong.
In our collective unconscious, albeit not in Alfred Hitchcock’s, birds are often a sign of environmental health, a symbol of relaxation and prosperity. Science backs us up here. Australian researchers in 2024, connected abundance of birdsong with indicators of ecosystem health and resilience following extreme weather events. Birdsong can also make us feel calmer and alleviate some mental health symptoms.
So what does it mean that, in parts of Oakland once alive with the distinctive cry of the Town’s official bird, things are a little quieter now? Should we be worried about the black-crowned night heron? What would we do if parts of Oakland went unexpectedly kwokless?
That’s what some local bird lovers are wondering. Watching the night heron’s local population struggle after years of habitat disruption, they’re concerned that urban development and unapproved tree felling are continuing to threaten the bird’s homes. Efforts to move the birds out of downtown trees have largely failed, and citizen scientists worry they’ll face further risk.
“Something is wrong,” said Jett, a local resident who has been meticulously watching the birds. “We don’t have as many birds here.”
But scientists and local birding groups offer some reassurance. They say the birds are resilient and largely doing well. While they are not as concerned as some Oakland birders, they emphasize that support from locals is vital to maintaining heron health.
“I think for greater Oakland, it would be really cool for everyone to get to know these birds, really feeling that connection with it” said Samantha Sammons, a conservation biologist for the Oakland Zoo, which is a member of the Heron Alliance, a collaboration between several local entities including the zoo, the Golden Gate Bird Alliance, the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory, and the International Bird Rescue, to support and protect local black-crowned night herons. “And that connection will hopefully empower them to feel like they can do something to help not only [this] bird but other wildlife that they’re coexisting with out in downtown Oakland.”
‘The herons didn’t move’
Native to the Bay Area — and to many areas across North America — black-crowned night herons have been residents of the Oakland area long before any of us showed up.
It is undoubtedly a distinctive bird. Its football-shaped body, black cap, and vibrant red eyes are easy to spot in Oakland’s city canopy. The young look nothing like the adults. Instead of the black and white feathers that characterize the adults, the chicks are brown with an erratic crown of feathers, giving them the perpetual appearance of children who’ve just been awoken. They also have a memorable call: that barking kwok that reverberates through the night air. The “night” in night heron comes from the fact that the birds are largely nocturnal, hunting and breeding in the evening.
These birds are known to be adaptable. Their diet preferences are suited for a bay-side city like Oakland. Herons eat a primarily carnivorous diet, preferring aquatic animals, fish, and insects. They also eat things like rats, mice, and their fair share of garbage, making city streets a happy hunting ground for the birds.
Their communal nesting places, called rookeries, are often located in trees with a large canopy, which provides protection to their young. Black-crowned night herons like to return to the trees they were born in to nest in the future. In recent years, after development has encroached upon their favored rookery locations, the birds have set up a habitat in a set of trees in downtown Oakland — to the frustration and adoration of varied Oakland residents.
The main issue for those who resent the birds is the poop that coats the city sidewalks during nesting season. Whole Reddit threads have been devoted to this phenomenon, warning others not to park in the bird’s new favorite rookery location off 12th and Harrison Street.
“Parked my car on Webster between Grand and 21st while I went to a concert at the Fox and returned to my car completely annihilated with bird poop,” lamented one reddit user.
“It’s actually the Night Heron’s that hang out in those trees. So at least you’re getting shit on by the official bird of Oakland,” joked another.
But not all the replies are negative. “I find the urban habitat impressive and I think we just have to learn to live around them,” commented someone else.
Heron experts will tell you that the human-wildlife conflict demonstrated in conversations such as the ones on Reddit is why they focus on educating the public on the benefits and needs of the herons. It is also why they try to deescalate the conflict in order to protect the birds. Efforts have been made to relocate the birds to a location where they would not disrupt city-life and where they would be safer from human intervention. A few years ago, the city and local groups tried to lure the birds to take up residence in the Lake Merritt area, but those efforts proved futile.
“The herons didn’t move,” said Whitney Grover, director of conservation for the Golden Gate Bird Alliance. “They like those trees in the downtown area, so that was not successful.”
The black-crowned night heron, said Nathan Van Schmidt, a science director for the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory, has been a focus of local researchers since the 1990s. Because the herons are ubiquitous across North America, studying populations locally can help researchers understand the bird and apply observations to broader populations living in cities across the nation.
They’re also a good mascot for conservation. Not long ago, the bird’s local struggles led a group of enthusiastic Oakland third graders to mount a campaign to make the black-crowned night heron the official bird of Oakland. It took a couple years, but in 2019 they succeeded.
Van Schmidt, an ornithologist, said that he often receives pictures of birds from friends asking him to identify the species. He joked that almost always, without looking, he knows it’ll be a black-crowned night heron.
“They capture the imagination of folks,” said Van Schmidt. “They look cool, they’ve got their red eyes and their black mohawks.”
Brought together by the universe
Jett first saw black-crowned night herons when a friend sent him a photo of one in a grocery store parking lot. Not the most romantic of meet-cutes, but alas it was fate. After discovering the black-crowned night heron, Jett would soon find himself a next-door neighbor to these striking birds.
“I hear the birds through the night,” he said. “I hear them in the daytime. I see them in my comings and goings. And so I paid great attention to them right from the beginning of my time here and photographing them. And then the following year, I became very active on iNaturalist and then began to really pump my connection to them.”
Jett, a citizen scientist who doesn’t use a last name, is an avid user of the Bay Area-founded app iNaturalist, which allows users to photograph, map, and identify flora and fauna in their surroundings, providing data and conservation information to scientists. He started meticulously documenting the black-crowned night herons nearby, and in doing so became infatuated.
“They were right here,” he said. “If it had been another bird, I could have fallen in love with that bird. But this was the one that the universe selected me to fall in love with.”
In documenting the birds, he captured their numbers, movements, and their patterns. He paid close attention to developments that he felt threatened their habitat. He’s been watching as populations have struggled to reach what, in his view, is their full potential following threats to their nesting habitats.
This is consistent with what researchers have observed. Data from the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory show the heron population has been consistently declining for the last several years, according to Van Schmidt. He noted that the drop coincides with the removal of downtown trees over the years. Recent construction projects around the Lake Merritt BART station outside of nesting season resulted in the loss of an entire swath of favored nesting trees for the birds. Van Schmidt also said that trees cut down by private citizens had disrupted further nesting areas. Jett and fellow observers noticed these changes.
“In general, the number of birds had been higher several years back, it had declined,” Van Schmidt said. “The high peak was 2019, but last year was a pretty good year.” [Correction: After this story’s publication, Van Schmidt emailed to say that high peak was 2017, not 2019.]
According to the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory’s data, the peak number of adults last year was up 77%, to 179. There was also a 23% growth from the previous year in the peak number of nests in downtown Oakland, and peak nest counts more than doubled in rookeries by the Oakland Museum of California.
Van Schmidt emphasized that, overall, removing these trees has not meant removing the birds as well, at least not significantly. It just takes researchers and citizens time to locate the birds’ new habitats in the city. In the last year, researchers have seen heron population numbers begin to return to prior levels as they settle into new trees. (On top of being an ineffective deterrent to the birds and causing further conflict, he said, the unnecessary tree removals also result in the loss of precious urban greenery for Oakland.)
Regardless of the trendlines, Jett fears that further development, which caused the decline in the first place, will threaten the species. “It’s a resilient bird, but it needs to really be left alone in order to come back,” he said.
This is seconded by his friend and local naturalist, Damon Tighe, who has also been concerned over threats to the bird.
“If we want to keep these birds we’ve got to keep their habitat,” he said.
Allied with the herons
This is where education from local entities is key, said Sammons. Education, action, and recovery are key focus areas for the entities within the Heron Alliance. Each organization within the alliance plays a different role. The zoo’s job is to aid in the physical rescue and recovery of these birds through the efforts of its heron rescue team.
During nesting season, in a natural environment, a baby black-crowned night heron that falls out of its nest will usually land on the soft understory beneath the tree. From there, the bird may be able to hide in nearby plants or climb the understory to return to the tree if it is uninjured. But in a city environment like Oakland, the baby birds fall directly onto the pavement, often injuring themselves or preventing them from making their way back up. That’s when the rescue team springs into action.
The team was formed four years ago and goes out daily during nesting season, which runs from mid-March to mid-August to patrol for fallen birds. Team members will collect the injured birds and take them to the International Bird Rescue for rehabilitation and eventual release back into the wild. While out on the streets, they also take the opportunity to educate the public about the birds and their role in the ecosystem. Sammons noted that, within the Heron Alliance, there is a consensus that we need to find more permanent solutions to protect these birds.
“We all know what we’re doing right now is essentially a band-aid solution,” she said. “So we’re trying to figure out what we can do to support the community and the birds for the future.”
Grover at the Golden Gate Bird Alliance, the organization within the alliance that focuses the most on heron outreach and education, said that past management strategies of trying to reduce conflict between the species and residents by removing trees is like “playing whack-a-mole” because the birds will just move to a new location within the city. While some experts are looking into ways to try to more effectively relocate the birds, Grover said, the most important thing in her mind is for the public to be educated about the birds, so they can be left alone.
“What’s better is to just let the birds nest, let them do their thing,” she said. “They’ll be done in a few months, and then they will move and vacate trees once the breeding season is over.”
If the current fate of the heron has any deeper meanings for Oakland, it’s this: learn to appreciate your neighbors and maybe we can all find a bit of serenity together in the dense Oakland landscape, poop and kwoks and all.
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