Oakland North’s 16 new reporters (you’ve seen their bylines all weekend) are in Multimedia Boot Camp this week. They will emerge ready to plan a video, shoot a photo slideshow and or record a radio piece with the best of them. But last week, we found that some of our incoming reporters had a jump start on their tech skills.

During the three hour long scavenger hunt we sent them on, Nicole Jones recorded her team’s BART ride, visit to City Hall and exploration of Chinatown. She both recorded and edited the movie on her iPhone and we’ve shared it with you above.

The new reporters said they loved exploring Oakland and meeting new people all day. They came back with lots of story ideas and some new research skills. The only downside? We editors thought Jones and the rest of the team would take five hours to finish what they completed in just three. Next year, we’re going to have to make this harder.

So tell us: what would you put in an Oakland scavenger hunt if you were hoping to stump a smart, enterprising new reporter?

The reporters shown in the video are Whitney Pennington, Teresa Chin, Terria Smith and Nicole Jones.

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Hundreds of street murals brighten Oakland’s walls, painted by local artists, graffiti writers and collectives, like the Community Rejuvenation Project. Some are “bombed”, i.e. done without permission, on the fly, usually at night. Others are commissioned by private businesses and public institutions. This audio slideshow is a preview of some of them. Many more can be seen – and tracked down for live viewing – at oaklandmurals.com and oaktownart.com.

You can find out more about the Community Rejuvenation Project, which paints street murals (among other community-rejuvenating activities) at communityrejuvenation.blogspot.com.

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Bay Area Girls Rock Camp kicked off last week in downtown Oakland. Eighty girls, from ages 8 to 18, learned to play guitar, drums, synthesizer and sing. This is the third summer of Bay Area Girls Rock Camp, where attendees get to do more than just learn about music—they also go to screen printing classes where they design band logos and print them on t-shirts, take self-defense classes, participate in image and identity workshops, and learn about song writing and music her-story.

The next Bay Area Girls Rock Camp session is from July 12 – 16 at Oakland School for the Arts, and their showcase, which is open to the public, is on July 17 at Oakland Metro.

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Hovering three to four feet in the air above the ocean, a California Least Tern eyeballs an anchovy and swiftly plunges in head-first, spearing the silvery little fish with its long pointy bill. This fish hunter is white and light grey bird with a distinctive black cap, elegant tapered wings and a broad forked tail. While these birds have long been endangered, their population is beginning to bounce back and is finding a home in Alameda County, including the Oakland Estuary and Alameda Air Station—but they remain vulnerable to environmental threats.

The California Least Tern started disappearing in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when the birds were hunted for their feathers, which were used for hats. Before then, “there were hundreds of thousands of Least Terns,” said wildlife ecologist Rob Burton, who works for the Bay Area firm H.T. Harvey and Associates Ecological Consultants. During the last century, the birds’ population shrank even further as waterfront development ate into their nesting territory and brought the birds too close to human populations. By the 1940’s, the terns were either gone or very rare.

When census counts on the California Least Tern—the only subspecies of Least Tern in California—began in 1970, scientists went out to San Diego, Los Angeles and Alameda counties to tally up how many pairs of birds they could find. The total came to just 225 pairs in all of California. That same year the federal government placed the tern on its list of endangered species. “For about 17 years [the terns] just struggled along,” said Burton, before their numbers began to creep back upwards in the late 1908s.

A just-hatched California Least Tern. Photo by gdiproductions via Flickr Creative Commons.

The California Least Terns are sensitive nesters and breeders. They like to mate and nest on abandoned beaches or barren estuary shores near the water during this time of year—in May and June. They don’t actually build nests, but instead find shallow depressions in the ground where they can camouflage their chicks and be protected from sand and wind. In the Bay Area, many nests are found on deserted salt ponds.

Living too close to humans, their pets and their pollutants is a problem for the terns. According to the California Department of Fish and Game, if the terns’ nesting sites are disturbed or become crowded, they will abandon the land. They also are vulnerable to becoming prey for owls, feral cats, crows, raccoons and other predators. In some areas, terns have problems finding enough fish to eat or eating fish that contain toxins like DDT, mercury and selenium.

But after the birds were placed on the federal endangered species list, the population numbers for California Least Terns have rebounded. The California Department of Fish and Game, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and several non-profit conservation organizations have been working to protect nest beaches from human development and natural predators. Now, scientists have counted up to 7,000 pairs of Least Terns statewide—and one of the places where these birds are nesting is in Alameda County. “Most activity is down at Ballena Bay Island and Bay Farm Island,” said Burton. “And, for 10 years they’ve been breeding at the Alameda Air Station.” (At one point, the terns even nested between the two airplane runways at the air station.)

“The Navy personnel have done their best to avoid them,” said Burton. “The Alameda colony has been important for Bay population; and Alameda gives 15 percent of [the California Least Tern] population to the total state population.” These terns travel throughout the East Bay in search of food for their young and can be seen around the Emeryville and Oakland mudflats and the Oakland Estuary.

Terns typically lay three eggs and incubate them for 21 days. Both parents take turns caring for the eggs and also feeding the young once they’ve hatched. “These guys are semi-precocious,” said Burton about the hatchlings. “These tiny little guys will be up and running around, but still are still entirely dependent on parents for food.” After three weeks, usually by the end of June, they fledge the nest. By fall, they are heading south for the winter.

A California Least Tern showing off its catch. Photo by Alan Vernon via Flickr Creative Commons.

Even though their numbers have risen since the 1970’s, the California Least Terns are still on the endangered species list because they aren’t reproducing at the rate conservationists want. Over the past couple of years, Burton explains, “Their population has basically stayed level.”

The goal of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is to get the California Least Tern downgraded from “endangered” to “threatened” status, which would mean an improved population. But in order for that to happen, there needs to be at least 1,200 breeding pairs throughout 20 different zones in California, along with other indicators that show the birds will be protected from both human development and predators.

While counts over the past years have shown that the numbers are high enough to merit adjustment of the terns’ status, the other protection requirements have not yet been met. According to biologists at the Point Reyes Bird Observatory based in Petaluma, who have been monitoring the terns at the Alameda Air Station, the birds’ reproductive success at this site has recently declined, possibly because of an either inadequate or tainted food supply.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service warns that if the terns’ nesting sites throughout California are not thoroughly protected, managed and monitored, habitat loss and predators could likely reverse the recent population recovery. Although they’re no longer in danger of extinction, one of the threats that originally caused the Least Tern’s decline—development on their nesting grounds—still exists. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommends that in addition to continued monitoring and management of the birds, that also new nest sites be created or existing sites, like the Alameda Air Station, be expanded.

Text story by Dara Kerr; video by Jun Stinson produced in April, 2010.

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In southernmost Berkeley, the Richmond BART emerges from its subterranean track with a ghostly howl and trundles into Oakland, elevated above Martin Luther King Jr. Way. On an abbreviated bit of greenery at the intersection of Adeline and MLK, in the shade of youthful evergreens, powder-coated steel-plate capital letters spelling out the words “HERE” and “THERE” stand eight feet high.

The public art piece is a riff on a Gertrude Stein quote, who famously said of Oakland, “There is no there there.” Stein was referring to the disappearance of her childhood home, but the quote has been turned into an epithet against Oakland. An artist subsidized by the City of Berkeley installed the sculpture in 2005.

Right now, the “T” in THERE is wearing a colorful, hand-knitted suit—a patchwork of blues, greens, reds, and yellows. Last month, the T was “yarn bombed” in the dead of night by a group of local knitters affiliated with the international organization KnittaPlease, which has committed acts of “knit graffiti” in cities around the world and boasts the motto “we knit graffiti.” The local chapter of anonymous guerilla knitters cozied up the T in a bit of wry commentary about East Bay identity.

“You can see it as commentary, you can see it as art, you can see it as a lot of things,” said Emily Jan, an Oakland-based artist, designer and knitter.

If you happened to pass by the T on Sunday, you might have been invited to join the renegade knitters for a tea and cakes provided by the bakery Sweet Adeline, which is just across the street. The mask-wearing knitters were holding a “T party” to bring attention to their piece, which the City of Berkeley has threatened to take down if the knitters do not remove it themselves. City officials contacted the group last week, according to one of the anonymous knitting guerillas, and said federal legislation prohibits the altering public works of art.

“It’s so Bay Area,” Jan said. “In a way we’re very progressive. And in a way we’re really restrictive.”

“It’s brought way more attention to the sculpture,” observed Síla Convery, who owns knit one one, a knitting store across the street from the T.

Regardless of what becomes of the “T cozy,” the knitters have vowed to yarn bomb again.

This piece is published in cooperation with the Bay Citizen; a version of it appears at BayCitizen.org.

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They say that running barefoot is like gardening naked in the backyard: it’s not for all seasons, and your neighbors will probably stare. But is this trend only for the serious runner, or is this an opportunity for the rest of us to kick our Nikes to the corner? Mary Flynn has the story.

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Ken Ott and his wife, Lulu Lin-Ott, are part of a generation of young Oaklanders who are trying to change one of the Bay Area’s most troubled and dangerous cities on their own terms.

Lulu wants to sell organic ice cream; Ken wants to drive pedicabs.

Ken’s dream of a more sustainable, livable Oakland from the saddle of his rickshaw means he must confront the city’s challenges head on.

In spite of a recent violent incident in January, however, Ken is back and his business is expanding. One year into establishing Backseat Pedicabs, the city’s first regular pedicab service, Ken reports he is in the process of training two aspiring drivers to join him.

Ken is usually out during Art Murmer on the first Friday of every month, and Thursdays through Sundays each weekend. He works for tips. To keep track of his whereabouts and musings, visit his Twitter account at twitter.com/bakseet.

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On May 8th, a group of public school parents and supportive community members will ride 100 miles from Claremont Middle School to Sacramento to demonstrate their commitment to public schools and petition the state legislature to restore funding for K-12 education.  (Oakland North tagged along for a recent practice ride to bring you the above video story.)  The group is also using the ride as a unique fundraiser to support the PTA-funded programs at North Oakland’s largest middle and high schools: Claremont Middle and Oakland Technical High School.  At Claremont these include the digital arts elective, school music program and environmental science initiative.  At Tech such programs include the journalism club, the lacrosse club and the African American Student Action Planners.  Close to forty people are expected to complete the ride, though some will be joining 35 miles in from a rendezvous point at the Pittsburgh Bay Point BART station.

When they arrive in Sacramento, the riders plan to hold a small rally and present one of Assemblymember Sandre Swanson’s legislative aides with a petition and a packet of letters from Claremont students asking the government to better fund public education.  Hundreds have signed the petition, which asks Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Oakland’s representatives in the state government to restore vehicle license fee rates to pre-2003 rates and apply the additional revenues to public education, and to support ballot initiatives that would allow voters to decide whether to rescind super-majority requirements for state budget approval and tax increases.

The group is calling the event “Ride for a Reason,” and is still collecting donations and signatures through their link on Claremont’s website.  Paul Vetter, who said that he and his wife were committed to sending their young children–now students at Chabot Elementary–to public schools because “we’re public school people,” is on of the May 8 100-mile riders.  Vetter, a physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said it was important for him to show support for public schools because of “the value of public schools and what they offer to not only kids but a whole neighborhood.”  On Saturday, he’ll have 100 long miles to do just that.

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The wait is over.  The uptown location of Bakesale Betty’s, 2228 Broadway, Oakland, CA‎, started its soft opening Thursday at 7 a.m.  Employees from area businesses were elated to have a favorite so close.

The soft opening will continue Friday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and next week from Wednesday through Friday. Plans for a grand opening celebration are in the works.

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For those women who always wanted to unleash their inner Patti Smith or Grace Slick, last weekend’s Ladies Rock Camp in downtown Oakland offered a weekend of concentrated rock.  The three-day workshop included  instrument instruction and songwriting lessons for 25 women at the Oakland School for the Arts. On Sunday, camp culminated  with a showcase at the Oakland Metro Operahouse where six bands, formed only two days earlier, each performed an original song.  The majority of the proceeds raised from the workshop and the showcase will go to benefit the Bay Area Girls Rock Camp, which has summer and after-school programs for girls aged 8 to 18 years.