The Egret’s Sex: It Was a Natural Mistake

I think if The Times is going to continue writing articles about nature, you should hire someone who knows a little something about nature. Your writers seem to have an abysmal lack of knowledge about this subject, as indicated by the continuing stream of bonehead mistakes recently appearing in your paper.

The labeling of an osprey as a bald eagle (Jan. 22) was an especially egregious one. The Jan. 30 edition shows a picture of two snowy egrets, one chasing the other, and the caption states: “The chase is on--a determined male egret pursues a fine-feathered female down a marshy path beside the Upper Newport Bay.”

Any birder will tell you that there is no way to tell the sex of an egret by looking at it. What is really going on in the picture is a territorial dispute.

An even worse mistake is in the article on coastal sage scrub (“Big Ideas From Tiny Sprouts,” Jan. 30). Your reporter obviously thinks coastal sage scrub is a single species of plant. She says in her article, “The scrub is a small, silvery plant that grows on the coast of California.”

A check with any local biologist would have told her that coastal sage scrub is a plant community of low-growing sage and other similar plants that grow only in the coastal areas of California.

I truly appreciate the coverage The Times is giving on environmental issues and I applaud the editorial support The Times continues to deliver to environmental causes, but I think The Times needs to be more accurate in its reporting of these issues.

JAMES R. GALLAGHER, Huntington Beach