NATURAL PERSPECTIVES:Counting birds counts

We counted birds last weekend, first on Friday with the Shipley Nature Center monthly bird census, then again on Sunday with the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count coastal Orange County census.

When the Friends of Shipley Nature Center took over management from the city and began restoration in fall of 2002, the nature center was a wasteland of weeds. Vic and I had given up birding in Shipley because it was so unrewarding.

At this point, restoration at Shipley is well along the road to completion. Looking at birds’ use of the nature center is a good method of monitoring the success of that restoration.

Lena Hayashi began conducting a monthly bird census at Shipley in January 2004. On the last Friday of every month, she leads a group of eight to 12 birders who count all of the birds seen or heard during one hour at the nature center.

We now have three years of data and can start to see trends.

The number of different species seen throughout the year has increased each year, from 79 species in 2004 to 93 species in 2005 to 100 species in 2006.

One of the biggest differences is in the number of individual birds counted per year. The number increased from 2,621 in 2004 to 4,192 in 2005 to 4,457 in 2006. We attribute the huge jump to the ongoing restoration work that began in 2002.

Sadly, one species — the red-winged blackbird — is in decline at Shipley. Their numbers fell precipitously in 2005 when the Equestrian Center folks hired exterminators to poison birds at the stables.

Although red-winged blackbirds weren’t targeted, they fell to the poison anyway. At the same time, the birds have lost most of their prime nesting habitat at Shipley. Red-wings nest in cattail marshes, and cattails have largely been wiped out at Shipley due to rising water levels. If pond-water levels stabilize, cattails will grow back, and maybe the blackbirds will nest there again.

However, there are exciting compensations. Red-winged blackbirds are an abundant species. They’re doing fine elsewhere. But southwestern willow flycatchers are endangered. We had hoped that with improved habitat they would choose to nest at Shipley as the population is expanding down the Santa Ana River.

Not only was a willow flycatcher spotted on a census day this past fall — it was singing. Normally, they only sing in the spring. We hoped that it saw what it liked at Shipley and will come back in the spring to claim a nesting territory among the willows.

We’ve been able to document a number of other successes, too — nesting white-tailed kites, green herons, western bluebirds and Nuttall’s woodpeckers. These are additions to the nesting hooded orioles, Bullock’s orioles, Cooper’s hawks, red-shouldered hawks, coots, mallards, song sparrows, common yellowthroats, Anna’s and Allen’s hummingbirds, black phoebes and house wrens.

Santa was very good to Vic this year and left him a brand new BirdPod. Avid birders know that a BirdPod is an iPod that comes loaded with bird calls, instead of music. Birders connect their BirdPods to portable speakers and take them into the field to call in owls, rails and other secretive birds.

I needed to get up at 5 a.m. on Sunday to meet Vic’s group that was doing the Audubon census, and I wanted to get to sleep early. I had just nodded off when I heard a loud HOOT HOOT in our bedroom. I’m not sure why Vic needed to practice using his BirdPod in our bedroom. Maybe he was sharing the joy. I was not joyful.

But I guess the practice was worth it. Using his BirdPod, Vic was able to elicit a response call from a barn owl in the eucalyptus on the Bolsa Chica mesa on Sunday morning at 4:30 a.m.

It’s fun to be a participant in the nation’s largest citizen scientist data collection project, the Christmas Bird Count. We count as many of the birds in our count circle as possible, even the mourning doves, house sparrows and starlings perched on telephone wires in residential neighborhoods.

Naturally, we can’t count them all, but when the same places are counted in the same time period over a period of decades, the data is meaningful.

One sad bit of news surfaced. Our count area includes the Westminster High School grounds, and they have several acres of land dedicated to the agricultural education program. The site is immediately on the north side of the 405 freeway, just west of Goldenwest Street. Many 405 users know the site because there is a highly visible pumpkin patch there every fall, and sometimes the calves that the high school students raise can be seen grazing in the fields. This area also includes one of the best sites in Orange County for vermilion flycatcher and includes a small nature center.

We learned that the school district wants to convert much of this acreage (including the nature center) into a storage yard for motor homes. The reason, of course, is it would mean income for the school district.

While teaching agriculture to high school students in Westminster may be a career anachronism, it does teach city kids good lessons about caring for animals and where their food comes from.

It is sad to lose any open space in Orange County, no matter how small, but this would be particularly unfortunate. We hope the district can find other income alternatives.