Nature and Nurture : Tucker Wildlife Sanctuary Is a Place Where Animals and Curiosity Thrive

The fields are abuzz with hummingbirds.

They hover over the fuchsia-flowering gooseberry plants and dart near the abundant black sage. Occasionally they dive madly toward the bubbling brook. And almost always, the world’s tiniest bird can be seen lingering near the veritable town of hummingbird feeders that gave this place its start.

All of which provided a constant source of delight for the students who happened by on a recent afternoon.

Carol York had brought her third-grade class from Francis Scott Key Elementary School in Anaheim. “Most of them are city children who don’t get much of a chance to see anything but cement,” she said. “This is a very exciting day for them.”

They, like thousands of other schoolchildren each year, made the class trip to the Tucker Wildlife Sanctuary, a place that--while little known in Orange County--attracts bird-watchers from around the world because of an ecology that has remained largely untouched by civilization.

“It gives people a chance to see what Orange County looked like when the Spanish got here,” said Ray Munson, the naturalist who manages the 12-acre sanctuary in Modjeska Canyon, 12 miles east of Orange.

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The hummingbirds were here in 1926 when Ben Tucker, a wealthy banker/philanthropist from Long Beach, retired with his wife, Dorothy May, in a canyon house that is incorporated in the sanctuary. Both lovers of animals and children, Ben built birdhouses while Dorothy May invented the first hummingbird feeder.

After his wife’s death in 1939, Tucker donated the house and its 12 acres to the San Fernando Audubon Society, which maintained it as a public nonprofit sanctuary for the next 29 years. In 1968 the society gave the property to the Cal State Fullerton Foundation, which has been running it ever since.

In addition to the five varieties of hummingbird that have always populated the lush spot, according to Munson, the sanctuary is now also frequented by about 150 other species of birds including the red-shouldered hawk, Nuttall’s woodpecker, California thrasher, Western meadowlark, black-headed grosbeak and purple finch. More than 360 plant species inhabit the well-shaded area with a stream running through it. Among the other animals seen in the area are foxes, raccoons, coyotes, weasels, mountain lions and mule deer.

“It’s just beautiful,” said Munson, who’s been working here for 20 years.

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Of the 40,000 visitors who come to the sanctuary annually, Munson said, about 10,000 are schoolchildren on tours; most of the rest are bird watchers from around the globe.

People like Nina Olander who, laden with binoculars, came here from Los Angeles recently hoping to spot a Western tanager. “I think it’s wonderful,” she said of the sanctuary. “We’re seeing some uncommon birds.”

Or Tom Horan, a retired General Motors executive vacationing from Tucson with his wife. “I like the outdoors,” he said. “This is a nice part of California; usually from the highways all you can see are the brown hills.”

Relaxing on a wooden walkway over a tree-shaded gully, some visitors--most of whom offer a voluntary contribution of $1.50 apiece for the privilege--stand transfixed by the creek below while they quietly look for birds. A nearby pond is home to bullfrogs and turtles.

Near the Tuckers’ old house, nature lovers can sit on benches facing an array of hummingbird feeders. Or, for a bout of serious bird watching, they can enter the glassed-in observation porch, from which much of the area’s bountiful feathered community is usually visible. The porch is perched on a slope, near a tree with feeders; the glass wall keeps the birds from being scared away by the noises people make.

But at the heart of the place, Munson said, are the kids who trek over it every day. After enjoying an hourlong guided tour of the observation porch, brook and chaparral trail, the third-graders from Anaheim are ushered into the sanctuary’s modest museum to encounter the lizards, turtles and snakes that seem to make their day.

Shantell Pinkerton said she had never before seen a lizard resembling a rock. Liliana Montes was especially enamored of the turtles. And Jose Pementel observed that the snakes are definitely cool.

“It broadens their horizons,” Munson said of the experience. “About the only thing we don’t have here are black bears.”

Said teacher York: “It’s a chance for our children to get into nature. I want them to have a sense of wonder.”