Notes about your surroundings.

Spill Update--In the days following the American Trader oil spill in February, officials at Crystal Cove State Park--site of some of the county’s best tide pools--watched with worry as the sheen of spilled crude floated south. Some oil, in the form of a brown foam, did wash up onto the rocks of the park’s intertidal areas.

The good news was that the park had been closely monitoring some of these areas as part of a twice-yearly survey of its marine life. Since the spill, the park has stepped up the survey to once a month. This has allowed park officials to measure some of the spill’s impact.

Early signs are good, according to John O’Rourke, a park ranger and head of resource management at Crystal Cove. “Crystal Cove here wasn’t too badly affected,” O’Rourke said.

Some early damage to the eelgrass and several species of algae was evident soon after the spill at test sites at Reef Point and Treasure Cove, but those have come back strongly in the past month. “We didn’t see a lot of other damage,” O’Rourke said.

In the survey, photographs of a specified 1-square-meter site are taken at regular intervals and compared. The survey has continued for seven years.

Crystal Cove State Park, with 3.2 miles of coast between Newport Beach and Laguna Beach, harbors some of the richest intertidal areas in the county and also includes a 1,000-acre undersea reserve with kelp forests.

Sheep Date--The Santa Ana Zoo’s Sheepshearing Festival is planned from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. May 19 on the lawn inside the zoo.

Families will be able to watch the whole wool-making process, from shearing the sheep to wool carding, spinning and weaving. Visitors will be invited to handle the raw wool. The event is now in its eighth year.

Zoo admission is $2 for adults, 75 cents for children 3 to 12 years old. The zoo is located at 1801 E. Chestnut Ave., Santa Ana. For more information, call (714) 836-4000.