Bird Watchers’ Tally of Feathered Friends Undeterred by Rain

Saturday’s rainstorm was for the birds, but it didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of a clutch of intrepid bird watchers.

As rain pelted the San Fernando Valley, members of the local Audubon Society slogged along muddy trails to count their feathered friends for an annual avian census.

Before the soggy expedition began at Chatsworth Reservoir, one of the four bird watchers who showed up--20 were expected--joked that she had just made a rare sighting: four rain-soaked dodos.

They were Wendi Gladstone, Patrick McMonagle, and Irene and Art Langton.

“These are the faithful,” Art Langton agreed later as he maneuvered his truck along the muddy roads that circle the dry reservoir west of West Hills. Meanwhile, small flocks of other enthusiasts tallied wrentits, Canada geese and other birds around the Van Norman and Encino reservoirs, Hansen Dam, Pierce College and the Sepulveda Basin.

What appeared to the untrained eye as black blobs in the treetops revealed themselves as starlings and crows and lark sparrows to the sharp gaze of the bird watcher. Or so they said. “A bird watcher is never in doubt,” one said. “But he might be wrong.”

Their counts will be logged in a nationwide report much like the U.S. census. The document provides insights into migration habits and helps determine how environmental changes affect where birds choose to live.

“We used to get a lot of shore birds,” said Art Langton, who has been counting birds at the reservoir since 1958.

Predictably, their numbers have dwindled since the reservoir was drained several years ago.

“When you change the environment, it’s to the benefit of one species and the detriment of another.”

The count was taken despite the weather, because results must be toted up by the middle of January.

Outfitted in rain gear and covering their binoculars with plastic wrap, the census takers made the best of the weather, protecting notebooks with their jackets and taking cover in Langton’s truck during the heaviest downpours.

Even before Saturday’s expedition began, the quartet spied a red-naped sapsucker, a cousin of the storied yellow-bellied variety. For California bird watchers, apparently, spotting a red-naped sapsucker is a big deal.

“We’re off to a good start,” Langton said.

So off they went. A few minutes later, the rain resumed.