HUNTINGTON BEACH : Taking a Turn at Helping the Terns

It’s nearly time for the California least tern to come home to the Bolsa Chica wetlands from its annual winter respite in South America to court, make nests, lay eggs and nurture its young.

To prepare for the least terns’ arrival in April, volunteers turned out Saturday to pull up vegetation from two man-made nesting islands at the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve.

“You feel a responsibility to have things prepared. It’s like welcoming a guest to your home,” said Adrianne Morrison, director of Amigos de Bolsa Chica, an environmental group.

The Amigos and the Bolsa Chica Conservancy orchestrate the annual cleanup with support from the state Department of Fish and Game. A “Return of the Terns” event is planned for April 22, which is also Earth Day.

Morrison said the birds, listed on the federal and state endangered species lists, will nest only in open, sandy places, where they make shallow depressions to lay their eggs. According to Phil Smith, director of the Bolsa Chica Conservancy, recent heavy rains have washed a large amount of sand off the nesting islands, which have not been replenished since 1978.

As a result, Smith recently organized volunteers to move wind-blown sand from Bolsa Chica State Beach onto the nesting islands. Smith said 150 four-gallon buckets were filled with sand that piles up in parking lots and against buildings. Volunteers again helped to empty the sand on the islands Saturday.

But Smith said the effort is “a drop in the bucket of what we need.”