Natural Perspectives -- Vic Leipzig and Lou Murray
Environmental news is often depressing. Wildfires burn out of control,
filling the air with health-threatening smoke. People die in
record-breaking heat waves. Droughts devastate crops.
Confronted with overwhelming evidence, the Bush administration finally
has admitted that global warming exists. In a recent report to the United
Nations, the Environmental Protection Agency acknowledged that the
current global warming crisis is due primarily to the activities of
humans, mainly the burning of fossil fuel, which produces greenhouse
gases.
We see the effects of global warming already. It’s only early June,
but all the snowpack in Colorado has already melted. Huntington Beach
residents depend on this Rocky Mountain snowpack to fill the Colorado
River and provide us with some of our drinking water.
We were appalled that the administration’s pathetic response to global
warming is that we’ll just have to learn to live with the consequences.
God forbid that this petroleum-loving administration should put any curbs
on the huge SUVs, motor homes, motorboats, personal watercraft and other
gas guzzlers that spew monstrous amounts of greenhouse gases into the
air.
You’ll be hearing more from us later about this report, but for now,
we have a feel-good story to lift your spirits. Despite a constant stream
of bad news about the environment, we found some positive news.
Bluebirds of happiness have landed in Huntington Beach. Real
bluebirds. A couple of mated pairs. Their chicks are just about to leave
the nest and fly on their own. The best part of this story is that the
bluebirds probably wouldn’t have come here without inducement. They’re
not normally found here. They were helped by the action of one man --
Dick Purvis.
Purvis retired nine years ago from his career as an electrical
engineer at McDonnell Douglas in Huntington Beach when, as he related to
us, work began to interfere too much with his birding activities. That
gave him more time to devote to constructing and installing bluebird
nesting boxes. Purvis has put nesting boxes throughout southern
California for the past 18 years. He finally succeeded in luring the
birds to Huntington Beach.
Although he was born in California, Purvis spent his formative years
on a farm in the mountains of Georgia, where he enjoyed watching Eastern
Bluebirds. Most of the local farmers there put up bluebird nesting boxes
because the birds benefit fruit orchards by eating destructive insects
and caterpillars. Purvis was fascinated by these beautiful blue birds
with robin-red chests and would check their nests frequently as a child.
Eventually, Purvis returned to California. On a picnic with his family
at O’Neill Park nearly two decades ago, he saw a Western Bluebird at a
nesting cavity in one of the big trees there. He was filled with
nostalgia for the bluebird boxes of his childhood and decided to try
making some.
In 1984, Purvis put his first two nest boxes in Featherly Park. He
noticed that the birds would venture a few miles away from the boxes.
Every year, he put up more boxes, installing some farther away each year
to help the birds expand into new territory. Sometimes he had to wait as
long as 5 years before the birds found and used the nesting boxes in new
locations, but he persisted in his efforts. He now has 350 boxes
throughout Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties.
About 30 people have joined him in this bluebird nesting box project.
Purvis builds the boxes with a hook over the top to facilitate hanging
them from branches. He has a lifter that enables him to hoist the boxes
over 20 feet. This puts the nesting boxes out of reach of the bird’s
worst predator -- humans -- and out of range of the powerful water
sprinklers found in city parks. With the lifter, he can safely take the
boxes down to check nesting progress while the parents are out hunting
grubs. With no need for a ladder, he can get the box back in place before
the birds return.
“I didn’t dream that I could get them as far as Central Park,” said
Purvis, “but I made that my goal.”
Last year, Purvis heard reports of bluebirds in Central Park, so he
decided to try his luck here. He put four nesting boxes in Central Park
and one in Edison Community Park. Bluebirds nested this summer in one of
the boxes in Central Park as well as the one at Edison Community Park.
Next winter, he plans to add more boxes.
Nationwide, bluebirds have been in decline primarily due to loss of
habitat. They prefer large, older trees or wooden fence posts for nesting
and open countryside for foraging. They’re rare in urbanized settings.
But provision of nesting boxes has really helped this species.
“Even though this is one of the smallest counties in the state and
it’s not particularly suited to bluebirds since it is so urbanized, we
have fledged more than 3,000 bluebirds in one year,” Purvis said.
In the face of so much environmental bad news, it’s wonderful to see
what a difference one person with a vision can make.
* VIC LEIPZIG PhD and LOU MURRAY PhD are Huntington Beach residents
and environmentalists. They can be reached at o7 vicleipzig@aol.comf7 .
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