Notes about your surroundings.

PRESERVATION CONFERENCE: Bob Hattoy of the Sierra Club will be the featured speaker at a countywide preservation coalition conference in Laguna Beach on Saturday. Conservation, preservation and environmental groups are invited as well as the general public. The conference, from 9 a.m. to 4:40 p.m., is sponsored by the Laguna Canyon Conservancy. It will be at Anneliese School, 20062 Laguna Canyon Road. Lunch is included in a $15 registration fee. Group booths are available. Information: (714) 494- 9855.

BAY PROGRAMS: The Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve, now part of the new California Wildlands Program, has a full slate of activities and programs planned for April. Participants need to have a California Wildlife pass ($10 for a year), a hunting or fishing license, or pay a $2 fee.

Upcoming programs include: “Bicycling the Bay but Not Walking on Water,” scheduled for today and each Sunday this month at 11 a.m.; “Early Plant Uses,” Saturday and April 22 at 1 p.m.; “Early Birder Nature Walk,” each Saturday this month at 9 a.m.; “Birds at a Glance,” April 15 and 29 at 1:30 p.m.

For reservations, meeting place and other information, call naturalist John Scholl at (714) 640-6746.

WRIGHT CHOICE: The conservation committee of the local Sea and Sage Audubon Society has given its annual conservation award to Walton Wright, a biological consultant from Brea who volunteers much of his time and expertise to preservation causes in the county.

Letters of commendation went to the county for its help with the Irvine Park revegetation project; Sherry Meddick for her preservation efforts in the Santa Ana Mountain foothills; Alden Kelly for his testimony in defense of coast live oaks and other native vegetation before the county Planning Commission, and Charlotte Clarke for founding and guiding the Orange County Fund for Environmental Defense.