Disturbing birds’ peace

The Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve is known as a haven for many winged creatures, drawing bird watchers and photographers from throughout the county. But a species of bird with sparse habitat suffered a major blow this year when someone got a little too close.

Officials say Huntington Beach resident Charles Michael Harris, 40, broke rules and swam out to an island full of nesting elegant terns to get a better shot with his camera. Now Harris, described by officials as a photographer working on a book, has been charged with seven misdemeanor counts of violating environmental laws.

There are usually 400 or 500 pairs of elegant terns hatching their eggs out on a small island in the wetlands each summer, said Jeff Stoddard, a wildlife biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game. But when faced with a human incursion, they nearly all flew off and let their eggs die in the cold.

“A lot of the birds were flying the whole time when the guy came out,” Stoddard said.

“It was cold weather. The birds were out there some time, and the eggs just kind of died. There were gulls just walking through the colony eating the eggs.”

It’s against the law to go out to protected habitat like that, Stoddard added. When a scientific aide noticed birds circling, the agency sent a warden in.

The warden couldn’t issue a ticket because it was hard to decide what specific laws were violated, but he did give Harris a notice he had violated the rules, Stoddard said.

After months of study, Orange County prosecutors charged Harris in October with harassing a bird or mammal, disturbing animal or plant life in an ecological reserve, unlawfully swimming in an ecological reserve, entering a portion of the reserve closed to public entry, and remaining there after an unlawful entry.

Harris is scheduled for an arraignment to face these charges at the West Justice Center in Westminster Nov. 27. It will be his first court date.

Efforts to reach Harris for comment were unsuccessful.

Elegant terns aren’t listed as endangered or threatened but are considered nearly threatened and “definitely a species we are concerned about for population reasons,” Stoddard said.

He called the loss of most eggs a blow to the species, which only nests in a few saltwater marshes on the West Coast.

“There was a lot less because of that event,” he said. “They don’t hatch again in the same year.”