UP WITH THE BIRDS AVIAN COUNT DRAWS EAGER FLOCK.

Byline: Lisa Mascaro Staff Writer

PORT HUENEME - With soft steps and quick eyes, they spotted thousands of birds Sunday in Ventura County, from grand hawks to common American coots, all tallied up for the National Audubon Society's 104th annual Christmas Bird Count.

With the sun barely peeking over the horizon, dozens of volunteers met at Camarillo Springs Golf Course, then fanned out to a handful of prime birding locations to count up the birds across the region.

``You never know what you're going to see. The luck of the draw,'' said Newbury Park resident Babette Lawall, a longtime bird-watcher on her first counting expedition.

``You have to be a little crazy to be a birder. They're so pretty. These are wild. You're just lucky to see them when you see them.''

The annual event takes place across the nation during the holiday season, founded as an alternative to holiday hunting, as enthusiasts brave the winter weather to tally up the nation's birds. The annual three-week count has created a century's worth of data that's used to monitor bird populations, according to the Audubon Society's Web site.

The San Fernando Valley Audubon Society's members found 14,149 birds from more than 120 different species two weeks ago on their count, about average for the area spreading out from the intersection of Nordhoff Street and Balboa Boulevard, said organizer Arthur Langton.

``We live in birding paradise down here,'' said Langton, a West Hills resident and middle school science teacher.

Among their most noteworthy finds - a Vaux's swift, usually only spotted between spring and fall, at Hansen Dam and an Eastern phoebe in the Sepulveda Basin. The group uses those locations, as well as well as local parks and the Chatsworth Reservoir, as its counting grounds.

``A lot of our areas are developed. They may not be nature, but they're unpaved,'' Langton said about the areas used for the count. ``That's why it's important to keep a few open spaces around - not just for the birds, for the people (who enjoy them).''

On Sunday, the Conejo Valley Audubon Society, which had the 13th highest count in the nation last year, tallied up just over 150 species, fewer than usual, probably due to the cold weather, organizer Walter Wehtje said.

Still Wehtje said they spotted five species of swallows in an area that usually doesn't have any, as well as golden eagles and a vermilion flycatcher.

On Sunday, Ventura residents Linnea Hall and Frank Stiernelof set out for Calleguas Creek, just above where it empties into Mugu Lagoon, to see what they could see.

Slowly, quietly - listening as much as looking, binoculars at the ready - they started tallying up the morning's population.

They saw mallards, teals, ruddy ducks and American coots right away. And a sandpiper. A double-crested cormorant. A belted kingfisher. And a song sparrow.

``I love counting birds,'' said Hall, who works as director of the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology, a private nonprofit research center in Camarillo.

``It's one of my favorite things in the world. I'm not a bird-watcher. I really love to get information on the numbers, what they're using,'' she said. ``I love seeing birds interact with their habitat. ... Here you're going out to where they live.''

They came upon dark-eyed juncos. Yellow-rumped warblers. A showy white egret, which left the creek and unfolded its wingspan as it soared overhead.

For Stiernelof, a kitchen tool importer, the quiet concentration of the morning was part of the experience.

``A moving meditation,'' he said. ``It's very relaxing.''

Wehtje, a biologist and lecturer at California State University, Northridge, said the tally provides an important snapshot of the types and amounts of birds across the nation.

He said he's used the tallies in his own research of the great-tailed grackle, a bird found only in Texas a century ago but now seen as far away as Montana and South Dakota, as well as in California.

All of the results will soon be posted online at www.audubon.org/bird/cbc.

``That's part of what these counts are for - you can go back and find what resources are there for them,'' said Hall.

Moorpark resident Michael Zarky said he got up early to see if he could spot any owls at a Camarillo park - he said he saw a great horned owl - before meeting up with the group.

The harpsichord builder and computer programmer, on his second bird count, called it ``a chance to find some peace and quiet away from mechanized civilization.

``Should be required for everybody.''

Lisa Mascaro, [phone]

lisa.mascaro(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

(1 -- 2) The Ventura County Audubon count's organizer, biologist Walter Wehtje, above, searches for birds just north of Sycamore Canyon on Sunday. A Say's phoebe near Calleguas Creek, top, was among the feathered creatures documented as part of the 104th Christmas Bird Count.

Charlotte Schmid-Maybach/Staff Photographer