COUNT IS FOR THE BIRDS SANTA CLARITA HOLDS ANNUAL TALLY OF SPECIES IN GLOOMY CONDITIONS.

Byline: JUDY O'ROURKE Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA -- The city hosted its fifth annual bird count Wednesday as experts and novices trekked through soggy riverbeds and leaf-carpeted canyons in search of native and visiting species.

Local participants were among roughly 50,000 worldwide who tallied birds for the Audubon Society's 107th Christmas Bird Count.

``We're getting to know the region better and the participants on the count are becoming more familiar with where the interesting habitats for birds are located,'' said Dan Cooper, a conservation biologist and environmental consultant. ``This place is sort of off the birding map.''

About 20 bird scouts fanned out, scanning trees and cloudy skies in Placerita and Whitney canyons, Castaic Lagoon, Newhall, Bouquet Canyon and the upper and lower reaches of San Francisquito Creek.

Among the roughly 130 species they spotted was a cattle egret, a small white heron uncommon in California but apparently adapting to Santa Clarita.

``These are the ones you see in pictures of Africa, riding on back of water buffalos,'' Cooper said. ``They follow plows; these two were following a bulldozer.

``They're not supposed to be here; this is not their native habitat,'' he said. ``As you bulldoze land, you destroy habitat, but you also allow for opportunistic species to swoop in and take advantage of the local conditions.''

Many birders recognize species from their telltale songs -- some even from a single note -- before spotting the mobile, oft-camouflaged critters.

``You will hear the birds before you see them,'' said Lisa Fimiani, who serves on the board of L.A. Audubon and has committed roughly 300 bird songs to memory since becoming fascinated by birds as a child. ``If you can identify their calls, you're golden.''

Each group surveys a 7.5-mile radius within a 24-hour counting period. Birds don't sit still for the activity, but the count isn't expected to measure an absolute number of birds in an area. It helps scientists measure fluctuations in regional and migratory bird populations and is used as a benchmark for measuring changes in the environment.

``If you see a huge decrease you know something's up,'' Fimiani said. ``Birds are a barometer of the health of an ecosystem.''

The information is entered into Audubon's database, which holds more than a century's worth of trends for early winter bird populations across the Americas.

Birds generally follow four migratory routes in North America, and those that mate and breed in Alaska and Northern California often winter in Santa Clarita.

Jennifer Jones, an environmental scientist, used a four-letter code for each species as she inscribed her group's sightings in a tiny notebook. Fimiani was a scribe last year during a vacation to Trinidad.

``It was a blast,'' she said. ``Here I was in a foreign country doing a Christmas bird count.''

An earlier holiday tradition involving a bird count was a blast for all. In the Christmas ``Side Hunt'' popular in the 1800s, participants teamed up, and the team that killed the most birds and other varmints won.

Ornithologist Frank Chapman, an officer in the fledgling Audubon Society, ushered in a more friendly tradition in 1900 -- the bird count. Twenty-seven birders from Toronto to Pacific Grove, Calif., recorded 90 species in the first year.

Some species seen then were spotted in Santa Clarita on Wednesday. Among them: the yellow-rumped warbler, Say's Phoebe, a turkey vulture, the ruby-crowned kinglet and white-crowned sparrows.

Unusual sightings included a varied thrush, which is like a robin but more boldly patterned with orange -- spotted in a Bouquet Canyon pullout -- and a beautiful ferruginous raptor, along Highway 126 in Castaic.

Nuttall's woodpecker, spotted in the wash near Pavilion's in Valencia, is named in Audubon's watch list. The species is still common within its range, but numbers have declined in the past few decades.

About 3.6 million birds have been reported in 120 Audubon Christmas counts recorded so far this year.

Environmentalist Teresa Savaikie spotted a pair of courting red-tailed hawks perched on a power line and offered a conservation tip.

``They mate for life and should be building a nest and laying eggs by January,'' she said. ``So if you haven`t pruned your big trees, let them be.''

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2 photos

Photo:

(1) Environmental scientist Jennifer Jones, left, and Lisa Fimiani, a board member of the Los Angeles Audubon Society, look for birds Wednesday along the Santa Clara River. About 20 bird scouts took part in the local count as part of the Audubon Society's 107th Christmas Bird Count.

(2) A red-tailed hawk, left, keeps an eye on life along the Santa Clara River. The group kept a tally of birds spotted in Placerita and Whitney canyons, Castaic Lagoon, Newhall, Bouquet Canyon and the upper and lower reaches of San Francisquito Creek.

David Crane/Staff Photographer