Volunteers on Lookout for Beach Chicks

A 62-year-old retiree, Charlie Brunt recently volunteered for a job as a baby sitter. But it’s not the typical caretaker assignment.

Brunt’s charge: protecting a pair of 6-inch-tall endangered birds known as western snowy plovers.

He is part of a small group of volunteers who have taken it upon themselves to guard the fragile birds, which for the first time in more than two decades have been seen at Oxnard’s Hollywood Beach. Two plovers, along with a nest containing three eggs, were discovered there earlier this month.

The idea of baby-sitting a bird may sound a little odd to some, but to the various groups throughout Ventura and Santa Barbara counties devoting hundreds of hours to protecting the plovers, it’s the only way to ensure that the birds reclaim area beaches as their homes.

Brunt, who moved to Ventura County in 1995 to escape the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles, said he jumped at the chance to volunteer his services when a local teenager knocked on his door, asking for help.

“I enjoy nature and just being out here,” Brunt said. “You’ve got to let people know why this is important. This is why we appreciate living in Ventura County so much. I mean, we’ve all seen what’s happened to L.A.”

Zak Ziv, 14, had just finished surfing two weekends ago when he happened upon one of the plovers, which he later learned was endangered. The high school sophomore had been looking for an Eagle Scout project and quickly decided this was it.

Within a few hours, and with the help of local conservationists, Zak erected signs and built protective fencing. He recruited his neighbors and by Monday had a staff of about 30 people ready for plover duty.

“The birds are doing great,” Zak said. “They’re getting a lot of protection. It will be very cool if they stay here.”

While the Oxnard conservation effort is still in its early stages, a few miles north at UC Santa Barbara’s Coal Oil Point Reserve, about 50 volunteers clock 100 hours every week standing guard over another group of plovers.

“We probably have one of the most intense day-care centers for plovers” in the region, said Director Cristina Sandoval, who every morning counts the birds and nests at Sands Beach in Goleta.

The docents are responsible for making sure that beachgoers and their pets do not enter protected nesting areas. They are also there to answer questions and to serve as educators, Sandoval said.

Their efforts seem to be working. In 2001, there was one chick. The next year, 16 chicks hatched, with 14 surviving long enough to fly. So far this year, there are 27 chicks and three remaining nests, Sandoval said.

The numbers are significant considering that there are only about 1,000 western snowy plovers left. Until 2001, the birds had not been seen nesting at Sands Beach in at least 30 years, Sandoval said.

“I think the plovers have told each other this is a good spot,” she said. “They’re smarter than we think.”

The western snowy plover, a tiny, pale brown bird with big dark eyes, nests near tidal waters off the Pacific coast. But Southern California, where the coastline is largely developed and where beach grooming cleans the sand of nourishing kelp, can be a precarious place for birds to raise their chicks.

Conservation efforts sometimes clash with the interests of beachgoers. In Lompoc, residents began a plover docent program to prevent the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from closing a beach to the public. They worked out a compromise that allows a half-mile of the beach to remain open during the nesting season, which generally runs from March until the end of September.

But the beach is subject to closure if incursion limits meant to protect the plover’s breeding ground are violated. In fact, by this time last year, the beach was off limits to the public.