Nature

Bryce Alderton Willowy branches extend over walkways blocking the path. A murky, oxygen-depleted pond sits stagnant. These sad conditions at the Donald G. Shipley Nature Center have whipped volunteers into a action in hopes of cleaning up the wildlife habitat. "It needs to be put back together, it's not a hodgepodge thing," said Jean Nagy, president of the city's environmental subcommittee that has been meeting for more than a year to seek funds to restore the center's wildlife habitat.

Many ways exist to enjoy nature, but one of the best is through the lens of a camera. Vic will snap a shot once in a while, but I’ve enjoyed capturing scenes and close-ups for several decades now. Some of my favorite subjects include Bolsa Chica, the marine invertebrates of Crystal Cove, and anything growing, blooming or flying through my yard and garden. I like patterns in nature and am fascinated by ridges in rocks, shadows on sandstone, and reflections in water. I would love to be a bird photographer, but I just don’t have a talent for it. All I have to do is look at the lovely Bolsa Chica calendars put out by the Bolsa Chica Land Trust to know that there are many, many people out there who outshine me in the bird photo category.

“Cinnamon teals,” he says excitedly. “First I’ve seen this season.” In the water near the boardwalk bridge at the Bolsa Chica Wetlands, several small ducks with large light-blue patches on the front of their wings swim nearby. Males have a bright cinnamon-red head and body, hence the name. Steve Mullins watches them in wonder, just as he watches every other creature here, winged or otherwise. It’s early morning at the wetlands, and Steve is doing what he always seems to be doing when I see him here — listening and watching the nature, and cleaning up. “My dad is my hero,” he says.

When I was a little girl, my mother was always urging me to go outside and play. Our house was at the edge of suburban sprawl and was surrounded by fields and woods. But books generally grabbed my attention, or sometimes television. Being outdoors on hot, humid summer days in Indiana held little appeal. Beautiful summer days were often lost to me, as I had more books to read than time to read them. But give me a rainy day, and I was in heaven.

Visual artist Zareh said he doesn't ponder too much before starting to paint or draw. He just goes with what feels natural. At first glance, the recurring shapes in his work, like fish, leaves and circles, seem basic but his message is complex. "What he can't say aloud, he's trying to say in his pictures," said Gayane Galustyan, curator for Harvest Gallery, which is exhibiting 36 of Zareh's acrylic paintings, drawings and three-dimensional mixed media until Sept.

Our town is blessed by having so many people who volunteer their time and talent for environmental causes. The need for even more volunteers is monumental and never-ending. Possibly one of the most interesting volunteer jobs is being a monitor of endangered California least terns and threatened Western snowy plovers. Dave Pryor, an ecologist with State Parks and Recreation, has organized a cadre of volunteers who monitor the least tern colony at the mouth of the Santa Ana River at Huntington Beach State Park.

Last week, Vic and I rented a vacation house on a fork of the Fresno River in Oakhurst with our friends Paul and Sue Hertzog and their delightful 15-year-old daughter Katie. Paul and Vic have been friends since they lived in France and shared a house during college days at Stanford. If the name Paul Hertzog sounds familiar, that's because he wrote the music for "Kickboxer," "Bloodsport" and several other movies. The game plan for this trip was to go into Yosemite National Park during the day and cook gourmet meals at the house every evening.

If you last saw the Shipley Nature Center in 2002, you won't believe the difference. The transformation from a weed-choked wasteland to a vibrant nature center is nearly complete. The Friends of Shipley Nature Center are hurrying to add a few finishing touches before their first spring festival on Saturday, April 29. Vic and I are two of the Friends who are trying to complete projects before that date. I don't think we're going to make it. I will get the interpretive panel on Native Americans finished, but the odds of finishing the panel on the Mission-Rancho era by then aren't as good.

We're revisiting two old topics this week: the Sea and Sage Audubon Birdathon and Shipley Nature Center's spring fling. First, birdathon. Several weeks ago, we announced that Vic's team had seen 169 species of birds in one day and had come in a close second to Bruce Aird's winning team. If Vic's team had seen only two more species, they would have beaten Bruce's team. Well, it turns out that Bruce's team was better at seeing birds than adding them up. When they retallied their final score, they came up with 168 species.

Penelope Koulos has a tough show ahead of her this weekend, as Ballet Repertory Theatre prepares for its first production of the school year. But tacked in the corner of the bulletin board at the Orange County Dance Center is something to encourage her. That's the small slip of paper declaring the record she set Nov. 18 in the Huntington Beach studio, where instructors keep track of athletic feats their students achieve durihng rehearsal....

The most common question that Vic and I get about our columns is "How are the chickens doing?" We thought it was time for an update. You may remember that we put a coffee table in the enclosed chicken run a few months back. Yes, our hens have furniture. They have a solar light too, just in case they're afraid of the dark. And there's artwork hanging on the chicken coop itself, but the hangings are located on the outside where we see them. The little coffee table that we put in the coop was one that my father made out of plywood back in the mid-1950s.

Last Thursday morning, I led a crew of 12 newly hired corps members from the Orange County Conservation Corps on a wildlife survey of the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve. The corps members use checklists and photo identification sheets to identify a number of key invertebrates, fish, reptiles, birds and mammals. But first they have to find the wildlife, and that's usually where the fun comes in. Vic joined us at noon, and man, did we ever have an exciting tale for him. We had just begun our early morning wildlife survey at the boardwalk when a photographer told us that he had seen an injured sea lion by the tide gates.

Name: Frank Evan Perdicaro Age: 45 Birthplace: Brookline, Mass. How long have you lived in Fountain Valley? 14 years Occupation: Currently unemployed, but for 23 years was active in the production of software for commercial print. I am working on getting a job. Education: Uudergraduate: Bowdoin 1987. major: physics, minor: history. Departmental and collegiate honors. Graduate: University of Massachusetts, Lowell, 1995.

A year ago, Vic and I went whale-watching with the Orange County chapter of the Society for Conservation Biology on one of Capt. Dave Anderson's Dolphin Safari cruises out of Dana Point Harbor. It was the best whale-watching trip we had ever been on. When the conservation group organized another trip with Capt. Dave this year, we were the first to sign up. There is nothing like an afternoon cruise on the ocean to beat the August heat. But on a Dolphin Safari cruise, we got a lot more than just a pleasant boat ride.

Ross and Patti Griswold sit at their kitchen table, chatting with me, but their primary focus is elsewhere. Specifically, they're looking out toward their backyard. They're not being rude; it's just that they've got to be on their toes in case they trap a mourning dove. Since May, the husband-wife bird enthusiasts have been taking part in "banding," whereby they attach a small metal tag to the birds' legs. It's part of a Department of Fish and Game program in which the public is allowed to take part.

The experts tell us that the ocean is now in a La Niña condition. So instead of being warm, like last winter during the El Niño, the ocean has cooled below normal. That's the explanation that we're getting for this summer of no summer. A La Niña condition bodes for a dry winter as well. Wacky weather along the coast also means that more wildlife washes up injured onto our shores. The Wetlands & Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach has seen an increase in pelicans being brought in, most of them affected by domoic acid poisoning.

Just double it once more, and we'll call it a day. When the festivities died down at this year's U.S. Open of Surfing, that was the thought that lingered in our minds. For the second straight year, the world-famous surfing competition proved to be a showcase for Surf City, USA, and also a showcase for its homegrown talent — local Brett Simpson, who won the world-record $100,000 purse for the men's title in 2009, pulled off a repeat last weekend. For the second straight year, too, the prize for the women's champion more than doubled in the course of the event.