The Sunnyvale Sun

Cover Story

Photograph courtesy of Ashok Khosla

Giving a Hoot: Burrowing owls stand around an artificially created mound at Shoreline in Mountain View.

Bird Spotters

Audubon Society does serious work, and its local outings are quite a trip

By Joanne Griffith Domingue

Alan Chou wasn't sure what he'd see on his first bird walk. Certainly not owls, which you wouldn't expect to see in the daytime. But that's exactly what the group of noontime bird watchers found on their trek at the Sunnyvale landfill.

"It was exciting to see the burrowing owls," Chou, a Sunnyvale resident, said. "It is very unusual to see them. It was definitely one of the highlights of the walk. I'd like to find them again."

Freddy Howell, one of the leaders of the monthly noontime bird walks sponsored by the Cupertino-based Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society, said burrowing owls are endangered here. They are losing habitat at a "most alarming rate." Construction projects claim the open land favored by the owls, and in Silicon Valley there just isn't much open land left.

They cannot dig their own burrows so they rely on those built by ground squirrels, Howell said. The burrowing owls, 8 inches long from tip of the bill to tip of the tail, perch on their long legs on the ground beside their hole. Their brown and white coloring blends with the furrowed ground where they nest. When they feel threatened, they pop down into their tunnel.

The owls' coloring merges so well with the brown terrain that Chou said he wouldn't have noticed them unless they were pointed out by the group. Howell focused her spotting scope on the owls. "That was very nice," Chou said. "You could see the features of the birds." The owl stared back at the birders. It blinked. Then it turned its back on the watchers.

A group tried to have burrowing owls placed on the state endangered-species list. The effort failed. In this area the birds are rare. But in California's Imperial Valley there are still many burrowing owls, enough that they are not officially considered endangered. "They are very endangered in Santa Clara County. There are very few left," Howell said.

A landfill may sound like an unlikely spot for a bird walk. But with its pools and ponds, fresh- and saltwater marshes and proximity to the bay, it teems with birds of all kinds. The landfill is also adjacent to Baylands Park and the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

Birders can thank Silviana Ruiz for thinking of the landfill as a place for bird walks. Ruiz works as a technician at the Sunnyvale landfill, formally known as the Donald M. Somers Water Pollution Control Plant. She said about four years ago, her division was talking about ways of being creative. "We were throwing out ideas. I'm outdoors all the time at the landfill and get to see all the birds," Ruiz said.

Ruiz thought of bird walks. Her supervisor encouraged her to share her idea. So Ruiz contacted the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society. It welcomed the idea and found leaders, Ruiz said. Four years later, on the first Wednesday of the month, the noontime bird walks continue. Ruiz is not a birder herself. "But now I have a bird book," she said.

Today the walks are co-led by Howell and Elaine Gould. Burrowing owls were not the only birds spotted on the November walk. The group also saw a great blue heron. It stalked slowly through the shallows, head hunched on its shoulders. Its blue-gray coloring looked soft and delicate, not standing out from the mud and reeds around it. At 38 inches long, it is the largest of the North American herons.

While the great blue herons blend in with the brownish background of marsh grasses, snowy egrets and great egrets stand out. Their brilliant white plumage makes them easy to spot. The snowy egret is about 20 inches long and leads with its thin, black bill. The great egret, larger at 32 inches long, has a bright yellow bill.

"In the 19th century, people used the beautiful egret feathers on ladies' hats," Howell told the birders. "A group of Boston women decided it was 'over the top,' so to speak, and that's how the Audubon Society got started and how the conservation element of Audubon got started."

The great egret is still part of the logo for the National Audubon Society, which celebrates its 100th birthday this year.

The society is named for John James Audubon, 1785-1851, a name that still evokes thoughts of beautiful pictures of birds. As a boy and young man Audubon loved studying and sketching birds. After he lost his business and was jailed briefly in 1819 for bankruptcy, he set off on his epic quest to paint pictures of birds, with his gun, his paints and an assistant.

In 1826 he sailed to Great Britain with his portfolio. The British couldn't get enough of backwoods America, and Audubon became an overnight success as "The American Woodsman." Audubon raised enough money to publish Birds of America, hand-colored life-sized prints of birds. Some call this the greatest picture book ever published. It came out during the years 1827-1839. His last bird print was issued in 1838. In 1840 a seven-volume set of his work was published.

The book has been called "one of the finest ornithological books ever produced" and "the most celebrated work of American ornithology."

More than 50 years passed between Audubon's death and the founding of the Audubon Society. A group came together to protect birds from slaughter at the hands of plume hunters when feathers, in the 1890s, were the height of fashion for hats. This fashion folly made hunting egrets and other birds a profitable business, according to the National Audubon website.

These early conservationists founded the National Audubon Society, which was incorporated in 1905.

Just 20 years later the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society was formed. This year it celebrates its 80th anniversary. Only 27 Audubon Society chapters in the United States have paid staff. The local chapter has three, said Bob Power, executive director.

The Sunnyvale-Cupertino area is fortunate to have the chapter offices in Cupertino at McClellan Ranch Park, housed in the old farmhouse on the site.

"We connect people to nature through birding," Power said. Bringing children to nature creates the next generation of environmentalists, he added.

The local Audubon Society offers classes in bird watching, sponsors the monthly noontime bird walks at the Sunnyvale landfill and maintains feeders and nesting boxes at McClellan Ranch. Staff participates in many environmental action groups. The society hosts a spring bird-a-thon and an annual wildlife education day especially for schoolchildren. Coming up is one of the local chapter's biggest events, the Christmas Bird Count.

The 2005 Palo Alto count, which encompasses parts of Cupertino and Sunnyvale, had 100 participants who identified 156 species and counted more than 68,000 birds, Power said. This year the Palo Alto Christmas Bird Count, or CBC, will be held Dec. 18. The local Audubon chapter sponsors three other bird counts in the county.

In 2005 the 100 bird counters in the Cupertino-Sunnyvale area were among the more than 50,000 observers in the CBC. The results of each annual count are compiled into the longest-running database of unbroken data. It is "citizen science in action," according to the National Audubon Society website.

The Christmas Bird Count began in 1900. Prior to the turn of the century, people engaged in a holiday tradition known as the Christmas Side Hunt. They would choose sides and go hunting with their guns. Whichever side brought in the biggest pile of feathered quarry won, according to the National Audubon website.

Early in the 20th century, scientists became alarmed about declining bird populations. Beginning Christmas day in 1900, ornithologist Frank Chapman proposed a new holiday tradition--a Christmas Bird Census, a plan to count birds rather than hunt them. That year 27 people counted birds Dec. 25 in 25 different locations, from Toronto to Pacific Grove. Those 27 original counters tallied 90 species from all the locations combined.

The tradition continues today. The objective of the CBC is to monitor the status and distribution of bird populations across the Western Hemisphere, according to the National Audubon website. The count period is from Dec. 14 to Jan. 5. When all the counts are combined, a picture forms of the continent's bird populations and how they may have changed.

The information is vital for conservation. Local trends in bird populations can change and signal habitat fragmentation or an environmental threat such as groundwater contamination or poisoning from improper use of pesticides.

For Carol Megas, the November bird walk was her second of the noontime treks. The Sunnyvale resident said she has been bird watching all her life. For Megas, a high point in bird watching was looking out a window at home and watching a peregrine falcon devour another bird.

Heidi Munzinger, also a Sunnyvale resident, has been going on these walks three to four years. She said she has been watching birds for five to 10 years.

Some people are bird watchers. Others go birding. Munzinger explains the difference. "A bird watcher will look at birds wherever they go. A birder will go anywhere to look at a bird." She considers herself a bird watcher.

"I love coming out with Freddy," Munzinger said. "It's a great way to spend a beautiful fall afternoon, with friends who inspire me."

Chou would come again. "It's relaxing yet educational and entertaining."

For more information about the noontime bird walks, the Christmas Bird Count, bird classes or conservation issues, contact the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society, 22221 McClellan Road, Cupertino, CA 95014. Phone: 408.252.3747. Email: scvas@scvas.org. Website: www.scvas.org .