Pelicans in Trouble in the South Bay

These pictures were taken at the Redondo Beach Pier last Sunday. You can see the old library, now a Veterans Park Center, in the background.
Last week, a flurry of news stories appeared about sick brown pelicans. Here's the article in The Daily Breeze, pointing out that the International Bird Rescue of San Pedro had 32 pelicans in their care.
Local radio stations also talked about the pelicans; speculating that the fish population ain't where it should be, and the birds are starving. Older, more experienced birds are suffering.  They are cold and emaciated when rescuers get to them. The birds should be eating up to six pounds of fish a day.
Disoriented birds have stumbled in to back yards as well. Here's the phone number of the International Bird Rescue:

310-514-2573. 

There's even a story in the NY Post about our pelicans. Apparently, a couple of the birds dive-bombed a graduation ceremony at Pepperdine University last month, and that got a lot of attention and tweets.

What does one call a bevy of pelicans? I just looked it up. They can be called a brief, a pod, a pouch, a scoop, or a squadron.
I think squadron has the most gravitas.
A similar pelican sick-in happened a few years ago, with even worse numbers. Ill, listless pelicans settled along the eaves of the restaurant at the end of the pier, dozens of them. Rescuers were taking only the weakest, because they were so overwhelmed and did not have room to care for all of the pelicans.
They hang around the pier looking for handouts from fishermen. While I wouldn't recommend that anyone try to get too close, you can tell by these photos that the birds were not shy or worried about people.

Falconry in Los Angeles

There are around 650 licensed falconers in California, mostly members of the California Hawking Club. They take their birds of prey out to hunt, and have to purchase hunting licenses for anything that they birds might possibly catch. If the falcon grabs a kangaroo rat or other endangered species, the falconer must step in and distract his or her bird with a chunk of meat and get it away from the prey--even if it's already dead.
The term falconry covers the care of owls - like this great horned owls - and hawks, as well as merlins and falcons..
Having seen great horned owls in the eucalyptus trees at twilight --and did you know they bob forward when they hoot? -- I was truly surprised that this guy looked half the size of the ones in the trees. I was told that the females are much larger, so it's probably females that I've seen.
Another thing about hawking in general: the birds' habitats are subject to inspection and have to meet many regulations. If a falconer wants to go on vacation ... well, he or she had better have some really good friends willing to weigh, feed, and care for the birds every day.
I had no idea that falconry was such a demanding hobby - a life-style, really.

I learned all this from Frank Hoffman, an officer of the California Hawking Club, who brought a Harris Falcon to Deane Dana Friendship Park in San Pedro He comes out there every few months and probably goes to other parks as well.

These raptors are stunning up close. We see red-tailed hawks circling over canyons and occasionally striking a pose at the tops of trees. Once in a while I'll see a falcon perched on a street lamp or freeway sign, or a Coopers Hawk diving at another bird. But unless a pair of high-powered binoculars is at hand, most of us rarely get a chance to study their beaks and eyes and very intimidating talons.
They weigh around two pounds or less, as big as they are.
So that's all I've got. If you see a flyer at your local library about a talk on Falconry, you really should take the opportunity to see these birds and talk to their handlers. It's a look into another world.

Night herons in San Pedro

Walked all around the Ports O Call Village, which is in the process of going away. That's a Good or a Bad Thing, depending on who you talk to. I hope for the best, because quite honestly it had become a shabby remnant of itself in the last couple of ... decades. The Ports O Call Restaurant is still open and fighting to remain so.
The latest news story about last week's meeting at the Grand Theatre, revealing new drawings, is here.
Packed house. The new drawings don't thrill me, but since developments never turn out looking much like their original renderings, should I worry? Maybe. Those girders are going to look weathered very quickly, I fear.

However, this post is about the night herons that perch near the fishing boats, just south of Ports O Call Village. And here they are: Night herons in the mist, if you will.

Update on Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park

The most noticeable feature at Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park and Lake Machado these days are the fences. Fences everywhere! They may be breeding . . .

The park is technically still open, though, and you can drive into the parking lot, park and take your children to the play areas. You can also stroll around the perimeter.

I saw folks picnicing and gathered around a couple of barbecues, though the view was not so nice. Who wants to lay back and stare at fences, after all?

On the north end, trees have been cut--though not an outrageous amount--and it looks like the fences have pushed some of the homeless into encampments that are visible from Vermont Ave.

There are booms and boats on the lake:

But I have to add that if anything, the lake looks larger than it did before the work started. I'm guessing that has a lot to do with the filtering mechanisms in place and the way they're cleaning it. Not that I understand it at all, but there are Big Thingies at the south end, and hopefully the waterfowl are enjoying the same access--even though the fences keep most of the visitors at bay.

Took lots of pictures of this guy, who had to be one of the biggest ducks I've ever seen, not to mention having a face so strange it's actually beautiful.

Lake Machado & Ken Malloy Regional Park in the Winter

To all those back east suffering through another polar blast. . . gosh, I'm sorry.

 I could say I thought of you this afternoon when I took these pictures on a beautiful, sunny, California day, but I'd be lying.

From top to bottom, these lovely creatures around Lake Machado at Ken Malloy Regional Park (formerly known as Harbor Regional Park) in Harbor City are:

• Great Blue Heron

• Snowy Egret

• Great White Heron

• A view of the lake, although there IS a Snowy Egret hiding in there

• American Coots

I had to do a bit of research on the Coots, because I thought they were ducks: small grey ducks with black heads and startlingly white beaks. However, once I googled "ducks with white beaks" I found a page called AllAboutBirds.com that set me straight.

Coots are, I learned,  "common sights in nearly any open water across the continent, and they often mix with ducks. But they’re closer relatives of the gangly Sandhill Crane and the nearly invisible rails than of Mallards or teal."

And there were Mallards there too.

And Canadian Geese, Chinese Geese, Muscovy Ducks, the biggest pigeons I've seen, gulls, squirrels, and more. From the calls I heard among the reeds--calls I don't hear anywhere else--lots more. One book I consulted says over 350 bird species have been spotted at this park.

Lake Machado is not man-made, and is fed by runoff from the Wilmington Drain. Since it has not disappeared over the years, I wonder if perhaps it is fed by an underground spring as well. It has definitely been there for centuries. One of the largest Native American villages in the area was near the lake, though it's never been exactly located or excavated. We know about it from records left by the first few Spanish soldiers and missionaries. Also, another European named Hugo Reid, who married a Tongva woman, collected lots of information and recorded it in the 19th century, as I posted a few years ago.

The name of the village is something like Suangna.

Lake Machado is named for Francisco Machado, who was a Los Angeles County Supervisor in the 1870s. Other Machados are prominent players in our local history--Francisco was one of 14 children of Augustin Machado and Ramona Sepulveda and had uncles and cousins, many of whom were landowners, but I did find a Board of Supervisors statement, on letterhead, that identifies Francsico as the lake's honoree.

As for Ken Malloy, he was a retired longshoreman who fought hard and led a grass roots effort to preserve this land as a park, back in the 1950s. It's the largest chunk of native riparian forest and freshwater marsh in the county, as I learned from Barbara Dye's book, Exploring the Palos Verdes Peninsula: A Driving Tour and Walks. Bits of history from the early 1800s include:

• The Los Angeles River once diverted itself from the Ballona Wetlands to drain out in San Pedro for a few years,

• There was once a stagecoach stop near the lake with an inn called Casa de Sangre (house of blood),

• The Dominguez Adobe once sat on a bluff overlooking this area.

And of course, it was home to Reggie the Alligator from 2005 to 2007.

What about the water quality of the lake? As far as I can see the native fauna have no complaints, but this is an industrial area, with big oil tanks visible to the south. According to Barbara Dye's book, over a million dollars of bond money was assigned to clean up Lake Machado in 2004, with work to begin in 2010.

I found a February 2013 article about how polluted the lake is and how deceptive its appearance can be, and at that point a 2-1/2 year clean up project was slated to begin. Here's an outline of the work to be done.

The Daily Breeze reported in June 2013 that trees and debris were being removed from the Wilmington Drain, and I can say that I saw some kind of pumping set up at the north (PCH) end of the park, in a very ugly, trash-strewn sump or lagoon.

Hopefully, progress is being made.

Added Jan 24: Found a great website, a sort of fansite of the park that has lots of information--especially about the birds, and many aerial shots of the park in the 1950s through the 1970s.

Forget Turducken; Have Ostrich this Thanksgiving!

Ah, me. Don't we miss the quaint and lovely ostrich ostrich farms of Old Los Angeles?

You know about them. right?

No?

While we all wax nostalgic over Red Cars, Bullocks and their Tea Rooms, and the dirt roads that are now freeways, no one sits back and sighs over the lost ostrich farms of LA. Notice that?

I'm guessing--not having farmed anything, including big birds, I don't really know--that no one could really miss the honking, the dust, the giant droppings, and anything else you can think of that would make living downwind of an ostrich farm less than idyllic.

Los Angeles' history with ostrich farms goes back well over a century. In the LA Library's photo collection I found pictures of the Los Angeles Ostrich Farm, which was in business at least from 1892 to 1941; it's address was 3609 N. Mission--at Lincoln Park.

But the Lincoln Park farm was not unique!

A farm started in Anaheim in 1882 was the first, and spawned a second farm (same owner) at Los Feliz Rancho, soon connected by rail line to 2nd Street and Beaudry in LA. These were  followed by Al Cawston's Ostrich Farm  in South Pasadena (which existed from 1886 through 1935, and which was reputed to be the largest in the country when Edwin Cawston sold it to a syndicate of bankers in 1911). Then there was the Wilshire Ostrich Farm on Grand and 12th and an Ostrich Park Farm in Glendale in the 1880s. Briefly, there was one at 2nd Street Park, and one in Norwalk and even Santa Monica. We were awash in ostriches.

Why so many? Well, ostrich feathers were big at the end of the 19th century, especially in Europe. In fact, after Mr. Cawston bought fifty ostriches from South Africa and brought them to California, he sold plumes plucked from the birds every six or seven months for two or three dollars apiece. Each bird could supply 25-30 feathers. That was big money!

Plumes were the main product of the farms, but vast numbers of tourists also paid to have their pictures taken in ostrich-drawn carriages. The petite wagons held one person and were hitched up to two yoked ostriches . . . there's gotta be a good pun in there somewhere. I must be tired.

We were gonna corner the ostrich plume market!

Cawston likely provided the ostriches for the other farms that spread across the Southern United States. The site of his farm, btw, is now home to the Ostrich Farm Lofts, carved and modeled out of brick buildings that (I think) were part of the original farm.

One fanciful 1914 article claimed that "The boy is now alive who will behold the wharves of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego some day laden down with bales of ostrich feather for import to foreign lands, while through the Panama Canal en route to New York will go quantities for distribution to the crowded centers of the distant East. The ostrich is a first-class multiplier and greatly assisted by the various American ostrich farmers by the scientific methods adopted for the incubation of the eggs. This means an immense American ostrich population in the distant future and consequently much to the glory, honor and profit of the people of California."

Um, yeah. Sure, you bet.

But as these pictures demonstrate, not all visitors came to ooh and aww over the plumage, or to sit in the cute little cart and send a postcard to Aunt Gertrude. Some visitors came to eat ostrich. Did they pick their bird the way we pick lobsters at the pier? Ugh!

If ostriches weren't enough to draw you into Lincoln Heights--and I just can't imagine such a case--there was also an Alligator Farm there, built in 1906 and owned by the same folks as the Los Angeles Ostrich Farm.

It was right next door, which makes one wonder whether any ostriches ended up as 'gator snacks.

An excellent site for more information and pictures is the History of Lincoln Heights website. That's where I learned that the bungalows and parking lot that sit there today are actually residential units for those in treatment for chemical dependency. One ancient pepper tree (a non-native species, ironically--just like the birds) is all that remains of the Los Angeles Ostrich Farm.

The first picture above is from our library's photo collection and was taken at the Los Angeles Ostrich Farm across the street from Lincoln Park in 1929.

The other photos come from a blog post of the California Historical Society, and were digitally reproduced by the USC Digital Library. They're part of the Title Insurance and Trust and the C.C. Pierce Photography Collection.

They are also labeled Lincoln Park though undated--but I'd put them at around 1929.

But really, check out the Lincoln Heights History website, and its ostrich page. They have text from the old brochures ("Take the Yellow Car marked Lincoln Park and get off at the farm. Fare 5 cents")and postcards of folks in the little carriages from all over the world.

If you want to see live ostriches, you'll probably have to drive north to Solvang.

Duck Duck Goose

Warning: woman with camera and a book on birds.

I believe these are Chinese Geese. Both of them, the brownish and the white, match pictures I see. The White Chinese Goose I compare to pictures on Bird-Friends; the darker one I've seen on so many pages and in books.
Bird lovers, perhaps you can help?
These pictures were taken at Averill Park in San Pedro on November 3. There were hundreds of Mallard ducks and quite a few geese. I think they are Chinese Geese but would appreciate corrections.

As for ducks, the non-mallards have me confused. My handy-dandy National Geographic book on Birds of North American seems to have given ducks short shrift. I see no Poofy Ducks, which is how my friend and I referred to these black and white duckies with a big cotton-ball poof of feathers on their head.

They are also called Crested Ducks. Wikipedia says they are descended from Mallards.

They come in a caramel and white variety too, as you can see below. According to the 10,000Birds website, those could be Buff Orpington domestic duck.

Mallards, I read there, are dirty birds, cross breeding like crazy, which may explain some of the other ducks I saw. Like a mostly black duck with the emerald green head of a male Mallard. That's apparently a classic cross of Mallard and American Black Duck
.But Avian Web says that Crested Ducks come from South America, and they have a picture of  a duck that looks a lot like the one below.

November 23 update: please check out the comment from Doug Peterson, who identified the black duck at left as a Cayuga, and the ones at right as a Fawn & White Indian Runner, both crested and none, and the crested duck above with the Mallards as likely a Crested Ancona. His blog provides a lot more information on them! That blog is words4It.com--don't know why it's not showing above.

This one is a Muscovy duck, I think.
When it comes to ducks, identification seems a lot fuzzier than identifying hawks or finches. I think it's because of those oversexed skanky Mallards, frankly.

Types of Flight

I mentioned a book titled Quest for Flight: John J. Montgomery and the Dawn of Aviation in the West almost a year ago, and today I heard from one of the authors. The book was named Runner Up in the Great Midwest Book Festival (Regional Literature Award) and also received Honorable Mention in the San Francisco Book Festival (Biography Award) and the Southern California Book Festival (Biography Award).

Montgomery--the hero of the book--made the first ever flight in a glider, back in the 19th century, in San Diego . . . twenty years before the Wright Brothers made the first motorized flight.

Flight is the only thing that Quest for Flight and these pictures have in common. I was on the Redondo Beach Pier before sunset last night and the seagulls were posing so nicely.

Sunday in the Park with George

George is the snowy egret. Not that he knows that. Nor does anyone else, I suppose, since I just made his name up.

The park is Averill Park in San Pedro, where you can see lots of wild life: dozens of ducks, a few geese, egrets, phoebies and other birds, skateboarders, butterflies, and wedding parties arranging themselves near the waterfall, stone bridge, fauna or meadows to pose for photographers.

Found a 1923 article in the Los Angeles Times that mentions this park--says its 12 acres "affords a splendid view of the Bay of San Pedro from its commanding position at the head of the beautiful Vista del Oro section."

The Superintendent of Parks, one Frank Shearer, was credited with giving Averill park touches of "rustic beauty."

A 1933 piece about the spending of over $1 million on parks mentions the waterfalls at Averill--pictured 80 years later at right.

There's a picture in the 1933 paper, but online it doesn't look like much--just enough of a sketchy outline to confirm that it's the same waterfalls.

The 1933 article reports that the million dollars was being spent to put  nearly 1400 men to work full time making improvements to the parks, and the project was expected to last three years. This was during the Depression, of course, and the money was part of a $5 million city bond issue, aimed at increasing employment in many areas.

So picnic grounds were added to Elysian Park, a grotto and rock terraces went to Fern Dell, Victory Van Owen Park and Reseda Park were created, the Arroyo Seco got more channels, etc. etc. Dozens of parks are mentioned, all over LA.

And even the rocks and bricks from defunct miniature golf courses were repurposed in the parks, becoming the bases of the waterfalls and new, decorative retaining walls. Waste not, want not.

Sounds like about a fifth of the money went to Griffith Park, where miles of bridle trails were added, roads were paved, and thousands of new trees and shrubs were planted. Not sure about the figure though because apparently the estate of Col. Griffith contributed funds as well.

But as you can see from these pictures, the waterfowl in the compact oasis of Averill Park are thriving. Children were racing around, squealing and playing, men were barbecuing and telling tall tales, and the cameras were clicking and whirring. Just the right antidote for the news . . . I wonder if we could start a movement, forcing folks to balance the time they spend listening to the news with hours spent in the city's parks. Just a thought.

Consider the Sparrows . . .

... which I never did as a kid.

These pictures were taken at the house that once belonged to my grandmother, back in the 60s. I don't remember black-throated sparrows back then, just anonymous little gray-brown birds that we ignored.

But look at the rich colors of these birds! They are gorgeous. I don't know how I could've ignored them.

Of course, the black-throated sparrows might be a far more recent colony, not descendants of the birds that flitted around when I was grammar-school age.

These sparrows live in a veritable bird-condo: two rather short but full cedar (or cedar-like; I know even less about identifying flora than I do about fauna) bushes in a neighbors' yard, right next to the cinder block fence. As at left.

There are dozens hidden in those dense branches. They usually come out and go in one or two at a time, but sometimes ten at once will burst out and zoom across the yard like little bullets, to land on an eave and chitter.

This guy cooled off in a wading pool--quite sensibly, if you ask me. So he's nice and wet.

This has very little to do with the history of Los Angeles, I suppose, because sparrows rarely figure in the history of big cities and counties. But it's the best I can do on a hot day, and I write that without apology.

Go sparrows!

A Gentleman and a Mosaicist: Hanns Scharff's Eagle at USC

How is it Monday again? I'm not ready!

But I do have this fabulous mosaic I learned of last week, at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

The mosaic is thirty feet in diameter, and was installed in the lobby by Hanns Joachim Scharff, I think in the early 1980s--just after a new wing was built to house the new Annenberg Center.

Mr. Scharff has a fascinating background: during World War II he served as an interrogator for the Luftwaffe, interviewing Americans who had been imprisoned or shot down in Germany. But he is remembered as a civilized gentleman, not one who made threats or indulged in scare tactics.

After the war, he worked with the US Air Force on survival techniques for pilots who were shot down. There's even a book on him by Raymond Tolliver: The Interrogator: The Story of Hanns Joachim Scharff, Master Interrogator of the Luftwaffe (Schiffer Military History). Now how many mosaicists can you report that of?

Scharff was held as a POW at the end of the war--by the Soviets. Since he faced being shipped off to Siberia and hard labor, American officers helped his escape from Soviet section of Germany and he became an interpreter, working for the US. The family's ancestral home, where Scharff was raised in the 1930s, wound up in East Germany and the Scharffs lost their estate.

His first big commission in Los Angeles came in 1955, when Nieman Marcus showed his mosaics in their store. Sharff moved here the next year.

Today, his studio is called Scharff and Scharff, and his partner is his daughter-in-law, Monika Scharff.

Finches in Torrance

My question:

Are these purple finches or house finches?

And how do you tell?

Big & Small Birds at Peck Park

Are these merlins, or peregrine falcons? After looking at images on Google, I think maybe female harrier hawks? Here is a close up of the same photo.

Beautiful day at Peck Park in San Pedro, overlooking the Port of Los Angeles.

Of course, once these birds took off--one at a time--the ever-present crows that populate that park swarmed and chased them away.

Here is another picture. My guess is that the birds were 14-15 inches long.

And below right is a picture of a black phoebe--birds that I cannot ever remember seeing until recently, but which now seem to be all over.

Fledgling Red Tail Hawk

Is she not beautiful?

No history tie-in here. Just a fledgling hawkette who hasn't quite figured out takeoffs yet.

No one saw her land, but she rooted herself in one spot and spread her wings to look even bigger and scarier whenever anyone got near.

The lovely people from South Bay Wildlife Rehab will reunite her with her parents by putting her in a tree near the nest (we know where that is). The baby stands over a foot tall, but weighs only two pounds--which I'm told is a very healthy weight.

I'm also told that downed hawks is pretty common this time of year. All the babies are getting ready to take that first flight, which can be tricky.

Hawks look big enough when circling overhead or perched in a tree a hundred feet high, but I'm always stunned when I see one close up. They are just so powerful-looking. This fledgling will not get bigger, probably--I did not know that they didn't learn to fly until they were this size.

The Torrance Main Library on Torrance Blvd. has a display of some stuffed local wildlife, including an adult red-tailed hawk. Happened across it a couple of weeks ago when attending a free talk on likker in early America by food historian Richard Foss--a very entertaining hour. He even brought a rum cake for the audience!