Group Provides Safety Nest for Terns’ Return

The beach seems an odd place to put a bird cage, but there it is: an enclosure the size of a football field erected on sand between Ventura Harbor and the Santa Clara River estuary.

This is California least tern country. Around every Mother’s Day, the sleek, agile birds swoop in looking for a suitable patch of sand to lay eggs and raise their young. Finding a safe haven is vital for terns on the migratory trip back from South America and Mexico. Only a few thousand of the birds, an endangered species, are left in the world, including about 25 pairs that return to this spot each spring.

A greeting party of a dozen volunteers from Ventura County’s two Audubon Society chapters--one from Ventura, the other from the Conejo Valley--hit the beaches Saturday. They set to work building a fenced enclave to protect nesting birds and their young from human intruders.

Don Davis of the Audubon Society came up with the idea in 1980. “We’re not trying to keep the birds in; we’re trying to keep the people out,” Davis said.

It is a precarious spot the birds come home to. Wedged between ocean and city to the north and south, the harbor and Santa Clara River to the east and west, there isn’t much margin for error.

The marshy estuary also attracts people. They pose a serious hazard to the terns, which lay their eggs in clutches of two or three in shallow depressions in the open on the sand. Unleashed dogs occasionally stumble upon eggs and eat them. People accidentally step on eggs. And noisy tourists frighten adult birds away from guarding nests, leaving young birds vulnerable to predators.

Tugging on a section of chain-link fence, Debby Burns of Santa Paula braved an early morning chill to help the birds.

“It’s fun. People care about wildlife in Ventura County. It’s a treasure. It would be a tragedy not to look after it,” Burns said. “People are interested and aware of how fragile this is and if we don’t look after it it won’t be here.”

Nobuko McClure of Camarillo joined the effort this year for the first time. Her husband used to participate before his death last year, and now she carries on his work.

“If you don’t do this, people will walk around and damage nests and the birds will not come back and we want to keep them,” McClure said.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service provides the local Audubon Society $600 annually to pay for materials. It buys enough posts and wire to erect the fence each spring and take it down in the fall, when the birds depart.