Great Backyard Bird Count - L.A. Zoo

This weekend is the Great Backyard Bird Count !

Across North America, citizens are playing a vital role for science by counting wild birds like this California towhee.

Why is this important?

Bird counts turned in to the Great Backyard Bird Count website will create a snapshot of bird populations across the continent.

The Great Backyard Bird Count continues Feb. 15 -18.

You can participate by counting birds in your backyard, on a walk through your neighborhood, in a local park or wildlife area. See the website http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/ for easy instructions. Be a Citizen Scientist and help count birds in your area.

When and where are birds nesting? If you have a nest that you are watching, NestWatch wants YOU ! You can enter your information about a bird nest at www.nestwatch.org.

This morning Docents and Zoo members at the Los Angeles Zoo counted 42 species of wild birds on the Zoo grounds for Great Backyard Bird Count and spotted an Anna's hummingbird already nesting, as well as red-shouldered hawks and black phoebe's preparing nests. (hummingbird nest 2007)

Bird List from Los Angeles Zoo, 2/16/08

1. Mallard - 18
2. Great Egret - 1
3. Turkey Vulture - 2
4. Sharp-shinned Hawk - 1
5. Cooper's Hawk - 1
6. Red-shouldered Hawk - 1
7. Red-tailed Hawk - 3
8. Ring-billed Gull - 1
9. Band-tailed Pigeon - 2
10. Mourning Dove - 4
11. Yellow-chevroned Parakeet - 6
12. Anna's Hummingbird - 4
13. Allen's Hummingbird - 4
14. Acorn Woodpecker - 1
15. Red-breasted Sapsucker - 1
16. Nuttall's Woodpecker - 2
17. Black Phoebe - 6
18. Cassin's Kingbird - 2
19. Common Raven - 4
20. Bushtit - 8
21. Bewick's Wren - 1
22. Ruby-crowned Kinglet - 2
23. Hermit Thrush - 3
24. Swainson's Thrush -1
25. American Robin - 6
26. Northern Mockingbird - 2
27. European Starling - 10
28. Cedar Waxwing - 30
29. Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon's) - 8
30. Spotted Towhee - 1
31. California Towhee - 6
32. Fox Sparrow (Sooty) - 2
33. Song Sparrow - 19
34. Lincoln's Sparrow - 1
35. White-crowned Sparrow - 4
36. Dark-eyed Junco - 7
37. Red-winged Blackbird - 30
38. Brewer's Blackbird - 45
39. House Finch - 45
40. Lesser Goldfinch - 25
41. American Goldfinch - 12
42. House Sparrow - 4

Download a pdf of my L.A. Zoo Bird List

"The Geese of Beaver Bog" by Bernd Heinrich

Book Review:

The Geese of Beaver Bog

by Bernd Heinrich
HarperCollins, New York, NY 2004


Looking for a summer read that has intertwining romances, intrigue and an uplifting ending? Then get your hands on Bernd Heinrich’s “The Geese of Beaver Bog.”


Heinrich is one of my favorite authors. He combines the scientific insight of a biology professor, the lyric wordsmithing of a poet and the curiosity of child with the artful unraveling of complex concepts that is the gift of a true teacher.

In addition, Heinrich’s books stand out for me because of his passion for fieldwork. He wades through the muck to get close to the nesting geese. He clutches a cup of hot coffee while observing on a frosty morning. He is the one who is struck by a defensive gander while patiently trying to establish a relationship with several pairs of wild Canada geese.

Less scientific than previous works, like Winter World, The Geese of Beaver Bog is Heinrich’s very personal saga of a Canada goose named “Peep.” This female Canada goose was raised by Heinrich and his family and then returned to the wild.

Could a gosling imprinted on humans lead a normal life in the wild? Would it remember its human family years later? Heinrich chronicles his life with Peep and in the process reveals some myths about Canada geese. Do they mate for life? Do they build their nests in communal groups? Do male geese dominate their female partners?

You will count the days along with Heinrich waiting for the eggs to hatch and hurry through the pages to find the geese when they disappear. You’ll hang on the successes and failures, and try to listen in as the parents communicate with the hatchlings still inside their eggs.

If you are interested in the natural world and understanding creatures different from yourself, spend some quality reading time with Bernd Heinrich and discover the complex and fascinating world of Beaver Bog. You’ll never look at a Canada goose the same way again.

Love Letters and Mate Gifts

Spring is in the air. At Fallbrook Square in the San Fernando Valley, the male raven is offering sticks for the remodeling of the pair’s nest on the “L” of the Kohl’s sign. The titmice and the Bewick’s wrens are checking out the bird house. While overhead the red-tailed hawks are soaring with their feet extended ready to clasp talons mid-flight to reinforce their mate bond.

Is it love? Hard to say. The raven offers a stick, the red-tailed hawk offers a freshly caught gopher, while for St. Valentine’s Day chocolate and flowers are the primary human offerings. Humans claim to express romantic “love,” but many birds mate for life and work together as a pair raising multiple families of offspring. Hmmm, what’s more romantic than a delicately offered mouse you caught yourself?

Expressing ardor with voice is a typical bird action. Song birds like white-crowned sparrows and the Bewick’s wren sing to their mate and to delineate territory. While some humans sing, we are more likely to express romance through the written word. Up until the advent of e-mail, humans frequently wrote love letters.

For Valentine’s Day a group of us humans did a live reading of famous love letters.

You can download the readings at
Love Letters
http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TS-6184.mp3

Listen on your computer or download to an iPod or other mp3 player. You might be surprised at the romantic writings of Napoleon and the devotion of John and Abigail Adams. Next year maybe we’ll have to include some bird song.


Did we count birds for the Great Backyard Bird Count?

You bet 320 individual birds. Stay tuned for our Birding From Sepulveda Basin Podcast.

Cambria Audio Adventure

LISTEN to the PodCast

Over New Year’s, Michael and I visited three wonderful natural sites along California’s central coast.


The Elfin Forest in Los Osos


The elephant seal rookery near Piedras Blancas Lighthouse






Moonstone Beach, Cambria.










To hear the sounds made by the large male elephant seal ...












and the calls between the females and their pups...


Or to hear why it is called Moonstone Beach and why the boardwalk is so important.



LISTEN to the PodCast -
Cambria Audio Adventure

The Central Coast is a great get away for a long weekend. The birding is fantastic and the elephant seals will be in residence through February.