Animals

Inconsiderate Hawk Makes Bloody Mess While Devouring Pigeon in Bernalwood Back Yard

/ Todd_Lappin

Reader Ken wrote to us to describe a scene of animal barbarism that arrived on his rear doorstep last weekend. Although Bernalwood does not condone avian-on-avian violence, we share this tale as a public service to our local pigeons and sparrows.

We have two Cooper’s Hawks that visit our yard frequently to dine on the wild birds we feed. Every few days the bluejays, sparrows, and finches explode into a flurried panic as one of their buddies gets snatched up in mid-flight and taken to a high up branch to satisfy one of the hawks’ protein fixes. Often the hawks will sit on the rail of our deck, sunning themselves while plotting their next attack. They are beautiful and amazing. But every time I try to photograph one, their superior rod and cone count triggers a flight response. I have only a couple of images so far.

Pigeons are the unwanted side effect of feeding the other birds, which include many unusual migrating species. Yesterday the progeny of the pair of hawks — an adolescent at best — came swooping into the yard and slammed into a pigeon which was walking around under the feeders, playing the best “sitting duck” role of his short life.  Sitting on top of the still-alive pigeon, the hawk dug in, tearing at him, feathers flying everywhere and blood, lots and lots of blood. We had a front row seat, with the carnage taking place about 6 feet from our desks on the other side of a window. At one point the hawk was bothered by a flapping wingm so he just ripped it off. I actually started feeling compassion for the pigeon, wishing the hawk would have just snapped him in two, putting him to death quickly. He spent about an hour pulling apart the pigeon and scattering his remains all over our stone patio, fence, and planter boxes.  I’m about to begin my Sunday with a hose and shovel, cleaning up after Mother Nature.

Photo: Courtesy of Ken

The New York Times Touts Our Local Purveyor of Perfect Food for Pampered Pets

/ Todd_Lappin / 1 Comment

Avedano's MeatsYou eat local. You eat slowly. You buy organic food. If all that is good for you, isn’t it reasonable to assume the same is true for your pet as well?

In the food section of Wednesday’s New York Times, writer Samantha Storey described the latest bourgeois-foodie obsession: Home-cooked food for dogs and cats.

And buried farther down in the story was a local wrinkle involving Bernal’s own Avedano’s Holly Park Market:

Since the fall, the butcher shops Marlow & Daughters in Brooklyn and Avedano’s Holly Park Market in San Francisco have been selling pet food made from grass-fed meat raised on nearby pastures. Melanie Eisemann, an owner at Avedano’s, said the store’s custom mix of ground meats, organs, vegetables, garlic, eggs, parsley and yogurt sells for $3.25 a pound. Avedano’s also reports a robust trade in marrow bones, many of them bought as snacks for dogs.

Ms. Eisemann said customers say that they like knowing the source of their meat, whether it will ultimately be served on the table or on the floor. Entering the pet food market has also been a boon for the business, since Avedano’s, like Marlow & Daughters, is a whole-animal butcher where no part of the beast goes to waste.

Hat tip: Noe Valley SF. Photo: Telstar Logistics

Why Bernal Heights Bees Make Honey That’s More Sweet

/ Todd_Lappin / 3 Comments


According to Alexandra Danieli, Bernal Heights is more pure, more beautiful, and more wholesome than other places. Our higher quality inputs yield higher quality output — in this case, better honey.

Danieli doesn’t put it quite that way, but Bernalwood is quite confident that’s what she meant:

Perhaps motivated by a drive to prop up the bee populations decimated by colony collapse disorder, beekeeping has become popular in cities worldwide. We visit one San Francisco beekeeper who keeps her hive in a Bernal Heights backyard where she escapes once a week to check on her colony. For Alexandra Danieli, beekeeping is part meditation and part fascination with a magical world of GPS, honing pheromones and group intelligence.

Savvy Spotters Say Bernal’s Birds Are Not So Sexy

/ Molly Samuel / 6 Comments

San Francisco’s annual Christmas Bird Count happened last week. (The counts don’t have to be on Christmas, just around that time.) The Golden Gate Audubon Society is still tallying the final results, but here’s the initial report on the birds of Bernal Heights: Not so exciting.

Tom White, who led the group that covered Bernal, said they didn’t see anything spectacular up here — certainly not any candidates for bird of the day. (For the uninitiated, birding is a slightly competitive activity.) Participants in Christmas Bird Counts count everything: crows, pigeons,  starlings, and ravens.

Between the Hill, Holly Park, and one of the community gardens, the Bernal group also counted Anna’s hummingbirds, a mockingbird, robins, house finches, pygmy nuthatches, yellow-rumped warblers, and two American kestrels. Mundane stuff. To them.

So Bernal’s not a hot birding spot — or at least it wasn’t the morning of the Christmas Bird Count. But we do have some nice birds. My favorites are the colorful scrub jays, squawking from a yard near you. The kestrels are cool, too: they’re tiny, colorful falcons. You can find them sometimes if you see a bunch of upset pigeons, but no hawk. Check nearby branches; chances are there’s a badass little kestrel hanging out. Even in the city, it’s a jungle out there.

Photo: A local hummingbird, by Molly Samuel

Bernalwood Is So Chic, Even Our Dogs Have Fashion Contests

/ Todd_Lappin

Everyone knows, we’re deadly serious about glamour and style here in Bernalwood. Yet few realize that our maniacal obsession with haute couture extends even to the canine crowd.

This was so clearly evident during the 2010 Holiday Winter Wear Contest held at Fit Bernal Fit, as part of the recent Cortland Holiday Stroll. Bernal’s four-legged fashionistas were out in full force, and now it’s time for you, ruthless human master, to judge the contestants.

Head on over to the Fit Bernal Fit Facebook page, browse the gallery of dressed-up doggies, and place your vote. Top Dog gets a free fashion photoshoot with Jean Pedigo Bernal’s own paparazzi-in-residence.

Winter Creeps In, and With It Comes… Vermin!

/ Bronwyn Ximm / 24 Comments

Screw winter solstice. The way I know that autumn has succumbed to winter in San Francisco is when I have my first sighting of a most unwelcome guest: the Jerusalem cricket, a.k.a. potato bug.

My introduction to this indigenous terror was five years ago,when in the midst of unpacking a few lingering boxes from our move to Bernal Heights a few months before,  my husband caught one of these beauties scuttling along our dining room floor. “Jesus Christ!” he cried. “What the hell is that!?”

Longer than the planks on our hardwood floor are wide, the creature made me think of a crab crossed with a cockroach, but without the cuddle factor of either. As the boxes we were unpacking mostly contained souvenirs from our honeymoon in Southeast Asia years five years earlier, we immediately wondered if the bug could be some exotic hatchling we had inadvertently smuggled into the country, some venomous horror that might pass for a very unattractive cicada in the moments before its neurotoxic bite stilled your stuttering internal monologue.

But now wasn’t the time to surmise about the insect’s identity or origins. Now was the time to get it the hell out of our house.

I don’t remember exactly how we captured it (when it comes to creepy-crawlies, we usually oust rather than squash, and in any case, this thing was far too big to crush with a shoe — just imagine the sound that would make, not to mention the cleanup afterward). I do remember insisting that my husband release it on the other side of the street. Far away from our apartment.

Back inside, a Google Images search to the effect of “grotesque hideous vile cricket cockroach thing” helped us ID our intruder right away. We learned that Jerusalem crickets are not venomous (though they can inflict a painful bite) and that they feed on dead organic material … such as the pile of decaying leaves perpetually outside our back door! We also learned that they are native to the western United States. After 10-plus years in San Francisco, it’s a wonder we hadn’t met one before. Then again, Bernal Hill is the most verdant locale we’ve ever inhabited in the city.

The next couple winters, a succession of JCs struck progressively closer to hearth and heart: first in our kitchen, then right outside our bedroom door — that time I very nearly stepped on the thing with my bare foot.

The past couple of years, my annual JC sightings have been up on the hill, in Bernal Heights Park — this year’s occurred just last week. Interestingly, both times, the insect was dead.

So was the other notable wild animal we last spotted up there, the Pacific gopher snake.

Hmm… Maybe if we could persuade a live one to visit our home, that would help get rid of another, much more common, hallmark of winter: house mice.

IMAGES: Nasty Jerusalem cricket, Neeta Lind. Gopher snake, Wikipedia