Birds Help Group Feather Its Nest

Ken Fortune reviewed his troops and ran down a checklist of equipment: boots, binoculars, bird field guide.

Along with hundreds of other National Audubon Society members across Orange County, Fortune and other members of the wildlife group’s South Coast chapter were setting out on the annual Bird-A-Thon, a field study to raise funds and catalog birds.

“The weather was perfect, and the birds were cooperative,” said Fortune, whose four-member group recorded 115 bird sightings Friday and Saturday at Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park near San Juan Capistrano. “The whole weekend was incredible.”

Setting out at 6 a.m.--”prime time for birds,” Fortune explained--the group made an exciting discovery.

“We saw a yellow-breasted chat. It’s the largest bird in the warbler family,” he said. “I’ve only seen three around here in 15 years.”

Last year’s Bird-A-Thon raised almost $6,000 for the South County chapter and the national organization’s Starr Ranch Sanctuary near Rancho Santa Margarita.

“It’s a fund-raiser like any of these walkathons or jogathons,” said Dick Kust, past president of the local Sea and Sage chapter of the Audubon Society.

“It’s a way to make your hobby a fund-raiser and be useful to science at the same time.”

The money comes from pledges made by friends and relatives who either donate lump sums or promise to pay a certain amount for each species of bird sighted.

The Bird-A-Thon is a national event in which teams observe as many species as possible within 24 hours.

Other than that, the rules are simple, Fortune said: “We just want to see as many birds as we can, raise as much money as we can, and have fun.”