A soaring fixation

A white-tailed kite came to a halt in front of Steve Alter and his bird-watching companions, its wings flapping as it hovered like a snow angel in the air in front of the group. The act — common to the bird — gained “oohs” and “ahhs” from the bunch who quickly pulled out pens and marked the sighting.

Alter’s crew of “birders” were one of a handful

The “birders” began their count before the sun rose at 5 a.m. in the Upper Newport Bay with a hunt for some elusive owls. They had some difficulty getting the owls to show themselves, including the resident Barn owls, and a short-eared owl rumored to have taken up residence in the bay. The bird is known only to visit the area on occasional winters, Alter said.

Alter led the count in the Back Bay for the Sea & Sage Audubon Society’s 61st Coastal Christmas Bird Count. Every year the organization sends counters out to 12 areas from Westminster to just below Newport Beach to count the various species of birds who call Orange County home.

Alter himself has been birding for nearly a quarter of a century, 15 years of which he’s spent in the bay with Sea & Sage.

“We probably found between 40 to 50 species this morning,” Alter said. “Just looking at the birds is very different from trying to count them. It’s difficult to try and count, just ... trying to estimate with a flock of say 100 while they’re moving around.

They work consciously not to get any overlap with birds already counted that had moved upstream.

Alter timed the upper bay counts with the tides so that all the shorebirds would be more likely to poke their heads out to get some grub in the exposed muds during low-tide.

Coming from a variety of backgrounds, Alter’s band of birders couldn’t tell you what exactly drew them to the pastime but remarked on how smoothly they seemed to fall into things.

“First you say, ‘look at those birds,” then you buy a pair of binoculars and next thing you know, you find yourself up at 5 a.m. trying to catch a glimpse of some hard-to-spot owl,” Jenny Golden said, a retired project manager for the Fluor Corp.

Alter’s group had some small excitements before lunch when the spotted two types of Rails. The Virginia and Clapper rails are known to be “hiders,” usually making their way around in the high dense reeds throughout the bay, unseen by the untrained eye.

But they make a beautiful call unmistakable to Alter’s alert ears. Just to attract such hermit-like winged creatures Alter has with him the “Owl-Pod,” an iPod with more than just a musical collection. On this Mp3 player Alter stores hundreds of bird calls and playing the sounds from a petite set of portable speakers gets all sorts of wildlife to give up their location with a response.

“Owls and rails are talkative, and often, if you talk to them, they’ll talk back to you,” Alter said.

For more information on upcoming local bird counts visit www.seaandsageaudubon.org.

KELLY STRODL may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at kelly.strodl@latimes.com.