COME ON UP: During the summer, Orange...

COME ON UP: During the summer, Orange County draws its international tourists mainly from Europe and Japan. But when winter approaches, the Australians visit. . . . Most vacation between November and mid-January, their spring and summer months when seven jumbo jets a day arrive in Southern California from Down Under. . . . Most attracted to Orange County come to see Disneyland, says an Australian consular official, but just how many he doesn’t know. “As long as they don’t get into trouble, we don’t know about them.”

COME ON DOWN: Migrating waterfowl descend on the county’s coastal wetlands each year, and close behind them come hundreds of “eco-tourists.” At Bolsa Chica, Huntington Beach and Upper Newport Bay, they ogle the likes of black-bellied plovers, Belding’s Savannah sparrows, Western sandpipers and short-tailed clapper rails. . . . “This area is renowned for its bird watching,” said Chris Obaditch, president of the Sea & Sage chapter of the Audubon Society. “And winter is the height of the bird-watching season.”

YULE ARMADA: Peak tourist season for waterfront businesses in Newport Harbor is December, when the Christmas Boat Parade draws an estimated 1 million visitors, mainly from nearby counties. . . . The demand for charter boats to view the nightly parade, which will start Dec. 17, is so intense that it provides half of the charter business for the year, says Bob Black, above, owner of Catalina Passenger Service. . . . Black even cancels his daily runs to Santa Catalina Island, because “we need all our boats out on the harbor.”

COLD CASH: You’d think winter would cool down those beachfront vacation rents, but it doesn’t. Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day in Balboa, for example, waterfront properties rent for $2,300 per week and up, equaling peak summer rates. . . . The reason is strong demand from “snowbirds,” the well-to-do from the Midwest and East who fly here to escape the snow. . . . One Balboa rental agent says that even after the holidays, demand persists and rents decline only about $300 a week or so.