Audubon Volunteers Take Gander at County’s Birds

Wearing a Baltimore Orioles cap, biologist Loren Hays peered through a tripod-mounted telescope, surveying the salt marshes of Bolsa Chica through the cold morning air just after dawn Sunday.

It was the final day of the 88th annual Christmas Bird Count, and Hays, along with about 75 other National Audubon Society volunteers in Orange County, was on the prowl for fowl.

As Hays called out the name and number of each species of bird he sighted, Paul Klahr marked down the information on his clipboard. His hands shaking in the cold, Klahr, 56, confessed, “Birders are crazy.”

200 Species Was Goal

That may be so, but only inasmuch as they will trudge through mud and stalk through cold in pursuit of the joy of sighting a white-footed clapper rail, a Belding’s savannah sparrow or a blue-gray gnatcatcher.

Actually, contrasted with last year’s count, when cold, wind-driven rain soaked the birders, Sunday’s mission was a happy jaunt.

The goal was to sight members of about 200 species of birds, record their numbers and file them with the Audubon Society’s national headquarters, where the statistics will be sorted and published in American Birds, the society’s quarterly journal. The final tally for Orange County was not available Sunday.

Some Types Disappearing

Thousands of bird watchers from as far north as Alaska and as far south as the Canal Zone are taking part in the continental event, which was started in 1900 by Frank M. Chapman, editor of Bird-Lore magazine.

“The Christmas Bird Count is an alternative to the Christmas bird shoot, when people used to blast everything in sight,” said Hays, 39. “Now, instead of being destructive to birds, (Christmastide) is actually helpful.”

But the event is still a somewhat melancholy one, said Hays, who works for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, because each year more and more species disappear.

Sunday, as oil wells pumped in the background and empty cans and bottles bobbed by his feet in Outer Bolsa Bay, Hays counted off the species that no longer inhabit the area--bald eagles and burrowing owls among them.

“For these species, it’s very hard to watch,” Hays said.

“One thing’s for sure: There won’t be any California condors spotted in the Christmas count this year.”

Pair of Falcons

Still, there are triumphs.

Hays and Klahr let out whoops of joy when they spotted not one, but a pair of peregrine falcons swooping by.

“Unbelievable! Unbelievable! Unbelievable!” Hays cried. Regaining his circumspection, the biologist explained that the peregrine falcon had been nearly wiped out by DDT. Because of the effects of pesticide contamination, the shells of peregrine eggs are too fragile for the birds to sit on, Hays said.

As a result, biologists must hatch the eggs in incubators, he said.

The lecture was interrupted when Klahr spotted some brown pelicans.

“A wonderful bird,” Hays said. “We take them for granted in Southern California,” he lamented. The birds are considered an endangered species.

Hays, of Huntington Beach, and Klahr, a Seal Beach resident, are different kinds of bird watchers.

A professional scientist who traces his fascination with wildlife to his early childhood, Hays has been going on bird counts since the early 1970s, when he was an air pollution chemist with the U.S. Army.

When Hays is not on bird counts or working for the Fish and Wildlife Service, he monitors colonies of endangered birds for the California State University, Long Beach, Foundation.

Sunday was only Klahr’s second annual bird count, but he is no novice birder either.

For Klahr, a retired cosmetics company executive, bird watching is a hobby, not a vocation. He says he started by studying birds in his backyard, and for the last five years has nourished his growing interest through courses at Coastline Community College and at the Sea and Sage Audubon Society chapter in Santa Ana.

For the committed Orange County bird watcher, however, not every avian is to be hailed. Walking along Pacific Coast Highway, Klahr observed several European starlings perched on a telephone pole.

“Starlings, Loren,” he called out. “Do we have to list them?”

The answer was in the affirmative, so Klahr dutifully added a category for the bird.

“We don’t like them,” he said. “They’re all over.”

Imported from Europe, the starlings are an unwelcome outsider, Klahr explained.

“They use the nesting sites that native birds would use.”