Friends of the Feather

If his wife’s golf swing had been any better, 70-year-old Karl Letsch might have spent Sunday morning on the links instead of hiking creeks and canyons, counting birds for the Conejo Valley Audubon Society.

“My wife and I were deciding on a hobby to do in our retirement,” said the former real estate broker. “But she couldn’t get the hang of golfing . . . so we picked up birding.

“I’ve always loved birds and I was so happy when she suggested we do this.”

Letsch was one of 40 Conejo Valley Audubon Society members who toted binoculars and scribbled notes to document the numerous species of birds found within a 15-mile radius of Newbury Park for the annual “Christmas Bird Count.”

This global event is staged each year for about three weeks around Christmas and was started in 1900 by bird lovers who wanted to protest traditional hunts of birds and other animals.

This year, the count is being held between Dec. 19 and Jan. 4. More than 45,000 volunteers around the world in 1,700 teams are participating in the society’s 98th bird count. It is the 30th count in the Conejo Valley. The Ventura chapter--the only other Audubon group in the county--conducted its count Dec. 20.

“We count everything we see,” said retired ornithologist Eliott McClure, president of the Conejo Valley Audubon Society. Bird-watchers realize they may count the same feathered creature twice, or miss a flock entirely, he said. But because they likely repeat the same errors every year, it sort of evens out, he said.

After the 87-year-old McClure returned to his Camarillo home before sundown, he tallied the numbers from the seven Conejo Valley teams and prepared to send the data to the Audubon Society’s national headquarters in New York.

There, the information will be provided to the federal government’s natural history monitoring database, where it is used to keep track of early-winter distribution of various bird species and the overall health of the environment.

The Conejo Valley team members--who counted birds in tree-lined areas in and around around Thousand Oaks, Lake Sherwood, Santa Rosa Valley, Sycamore Canyon in Newbury Park, Point Mugu Navy Base, Camarillo Grove County Park and the Camarillo Springs Golf Course--reported a total of 143 species and less than 10,000 birds.

Last year, the group counted 170 species and 23,000 birds, McClure said. The year before, it was 156 species and 26,200 birds.

According to Audubon members, there are as many as 10,000 bird species in the world and 800 in the United States. Of that number, 500 are thought to live in California and 150 in the Conejo Valley.

McClure blamed this year’s low count on Sunday’s gusting winds, which drove many birds to find shelter in the bushes. According to the National Weather Service, winds reached 45 mph in Simi Valley and 71 mph at Laguna Peak above Point Mugu Navy Base outside Camarillo.

“This is the worst year we ever had,” McClure said. “We just didn’t see anything. It was blowing so hard we couldn’t stand up.”

McClure also blamed humans for the general decline of birds throughout the years.

“Almost all the birds are decreasing in number,” McClure said. “And many have been made extinct because of human destruction and overpopulation.”

Letsch said he has personally viewed about 500 species that he includes on a prestigious, self-kept “life list” of birds spotted. He too has noticed a drop in the bird population around his home.

“We used to have many more birds that we noticed in our backyard,” he said, adding that his wife spent Sunday conducting a count by their bird feeder at home. “But now, it’s wall-to-wall houses in Camarillo.”

Despite the bird-watchers’ lament, an assortment of Cassin’s kingbirds, nuttalls, American crows, yellow-rumped warblers, flickers, dark-eyed juncos, bushtits, towhees, black phoebes, mockingbirds, ruddy ducks and red hawks could be seen flitting among the treetops and perching on high wires.

McClure also was especially pleased to see a large grouping of water-loving Bonapartes gulls and eared grebes along Calleguas Creek in Camarillo Regional Park, an open space north of the shuttered Camarillo State Hospital.

He fretted though, that the Ventura County Board of Supervisors has approved the building of a 16,000-seat amphitheater and 18-hole golf course in this riparian area, which he said would negatively affect bird life.

The concert arena could be built as soon as next summer if the Army Corps of Engineers and other groups issue the necessary permits.

When the skies and scrub appeared empty, 63-year-old Irwin Woldman stood with the sun to his back to increase his chances of seeing the small, airborne creatures and made birdcalls with his tongue and lips to encourage the birds out of their hiding spots.

From his calls, Woldman sighted a ruby-crowned kinglet, “an active bird, always moving, moving, moving,” and believed he heard a thrasher and a quail.

“You’ve just got to read the books, listen to the bird tapes and go out with people who know more than you,” he said.

Woldman lives in Studio City but joins in any bird count he can find. He said he enjoys his hobby because it takes him outdoors, it’s peaceful and allows him to experience an intimate part of nature.

“I love being able to walk and hike,” he said. “And today, I just love to watch the gulls and hawks take advantage of the wind and just soar.”