BIRD FANS FLOCK TO BACKYARD COUNT PROJECT DOCUMENTS PRE-MIGRATION DATA.

Byline: Lisa M. Sodders Staff Writer

Michael Lawshe, a supervising sound editor for Warner Bros., has a pet peeve involving bird sounds:

``I'll be watching a television show set in Europe and hear a North American red-tailed hawk screech over every shot of the mountains,'' said Lawshe, 42, of Woodland Hills, as he laughed. ``No! They're not there! It's a classic sound, but (not) in the middle of France!''

Lawshe would know. An avid bird-watcher, he's also been known to remove the sounds of Canadian birds from the soundtrack of the television show ``Smallville,'' which, although filmed in Vancouver, is set in Kansas.

And on Saturday, while he was working at the Burbank studios, he took a break to count the birds he saw for the Great Backyard Bird Count.

The count, which continues through Monday, is sponsored by Wild Birds Unlimited and is a joint project of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society. It's a chance for people across the country to become ``citizen scientists'' and document the distribution and number of birds at the end of winter, before spring migrations begin.

Jennie Ayers, co-owner of Wild Birds Unlimited in Woodland Hills, said she has distributed at least 150 checklists to area residents who wanted to participate.

``Everyone's contribution is important,'' Ayers said. ``It doesn't matter whether you identify, count and report five species that come to your backyard feeder or 75 species that you may see during an outing at a wildlife refuge.

``All the data collected helps establish where the birds are, how many there are and how their movements over the winter may have changed,'' Ayers said. ``Data you collect helps tell science a lot about the health of our environment.''

And participants get something back, too.

``I think people are looking for more of a connection to their environment right now,'' Lawshe said. ``It's really not intrusive - you can look outside your house or work and you can make a difference on the local level while thinking globally at the same time.''

Last year, Californians reported 257 individual species, second only to Texas, which reported 264 species. The most common California bird counted was the American crow, with 110,667 sightings; the rarest was the yellow-headed blackbird, the mitred parakeet and the canyon towhee, with one sighting each.

``It's the fastest-growing hobby next to gardening,'' Ayers said.

``They call it nature's therapy.''

Keri Dearborn, a docent for the Los Angeles Zoo, agreed.

``It's hard to see the change of seasons here - we don't have huge drifts of snow,'' said Dearborn, 42. ``But if you watch the birds, you see dramatic changes in the seasons. There's a hermit thrush who's shown up (in Dearborn's back yard) four years in a row. Specific birds who come to specific areas on a regular calendar basis.''

Dearborn's Woodland Hills back yard is filled with drama. Hummingbirds cavort in her yard year-round, and on Saturday alone, she counted five mourning doves, two dark-eyed juncos, a white-crowned sparrow and two house finches.

``I have a Cooper's hawk hunting my bird feeder,'' said Dearborn. ``He sort of uses it as a cafe.''

Lisa M. Sodders, [phone]

lisa.sodders(at)dailynews.com