Surfing Safari

It feels more like October than May this week. Gale force Santa Ana winds and temperatures in the 90s  have raised the red flag for fire danger and sent crowds to the beach, braving sand-blasting to seek relief from the heat, but before the winds blew in there was one perfect day for surfing.

You could tell the surf was up without even seeing the ocean. The Chumash name for Malibu—Humaliwu, "where the surf sounds," was well chosen. When there's a powerful swell the sound of the surf forms a dull roar in the background of the lives of anyone within a mile or so of any of the major local surf breaks.

Another sure sign of surf is the mob of cars parked along PCH at Surfrider, Leo Carrillo, Nicholas Beach, as hopeful surfers skive off work or school in search of waves. They were double-parked at the Malibu Lagoon, but a car pulled out just in front of me and, on a whim, I stopped and joined the rag-tag army of wetsuit-clad surfers heading for the beach.

"Not surfing today?" the guy behind me asked. 

"Just taking some pictures," I replied.

The vegetation at the controversial Malibu Lagoon restoration and reconstruction project is beginning to fill in, despite the drought, although there are still more flags than plants in some areas. The plastic flags are supposed to mark where the native plants are so they aren't weeded out by mistake. There was an American crow foraging for breakfast on one of new manmade islands. It's the first time I've spotted a bird there. 

Here's the same scene in 2013, during construction. I was amused to find there's a crow in this photo, too. Perched on the wire.

The surfers took the quickest route to to the shore, but I stopped to admire the kayak of an audacious explorer, drawn aground near the parking lot. Later, I saw the kayaker paddling lazily around the lagoon. The sand berm is closed right now, transforming the newly re-contoured and enlarged wetland into a kind of brackish lake that is ideal for kayaking, even if it isn't an activity State Parks necessarily approves of. 

I also watched the crow carefully picking its way along the edge of the water, looking for breakfast. A few minutes later, I saw him again, harassing a black-crowned night heron at her nest on top of a ficus tree in a Malibu Colony garden adjacent to the park. Later, he was down on the beach, on the lookout for unattended picnics.

This black-crowned night heron was defending her nest from the crow. The crow eventually gave up on eggs for breakfast and settled instead for whatever he could scavenge along the edge of the lagoon. I would never have spotted the heron if she wasn't giving the crow a piece of her mind. The genus name, Nycticorax, means "night croaker." It doesn't exactly do justice to their amazing range of vocalizations.

I also stopped to examine the "Winter Ramp-Summer Clock" installation, which has already stopped being a ramp and become, well, not exactly a clock, but a water level gauge. It's designed to fill with water once the sand berm seals off the lagoon in summer, transforming the walkway into a kind of post-apocalyptic scene that reminds me of Belgian symbolist painter Ferdinand Knopff's melancholy vision of the end of the world, "Verlorene Stad." 

The last tide slowly and silently fills up a desolate Brussels street in Knopff's pastel drawing. I doubt that's what the Malibu Lagoon project's designers had in mind, but it does sort of convey the same impression, doesn't it? 

There was no silent end-of-the-world-evoking emptiness at the beach. Instead, an astonishing number of California Brown pelicans were gathered on the lagoon sand berm. I've described Surfrider Beach before as a kind of miniature Jurassic Park. Being on the beach with hundreds of pelicans is about as close as it gets to seeing live pterasaurs. Pelecanus occidentalis is on the smallish side compared to other members of the pelican family, but this bird is still a giant, with an 6-8-foot wing span. The distinctly prehistoric looking bill can grow to be more than a foot long and the throat pouch can reportedly hold up to two gallons of water.

The pelicans, grave and silent, were joined by a huge,  raucous flock of terns, their shrill voices rising above the sound of the surf. California brown pelicans are a rare conservation success story, rebounding from the edge of extinction in the 1970s. The terns' fate remains less certain. They are a California species of special concern due primarily to habitat loss. 

California brown pelicans crowd the sand spit at the Malibu Lagoon. 

A huge group of elegant terns, the punk rockers of the tern family, were having a convention on the berm, too.

Here's the Malibu Lagoon berm. It forms naturally every year after winter storm season ends and the sand deposited by the tides is no longer washed away by the creek. During the winter, the creek flows directly into the sea. During the summer months, the berm impounds the creek and turns it into a closed system. At the end of summer, it's either breached by the first storm of the season or by human intervention. 

The terns like to take advantage of the calm water inside the main channel of the creek. Usually they have to share with a flotilla of ducks, coots and cormorants, but they had it to themselves on this morning.

The surfers are just on the other side of the berm, waiting for the waves that give Surfrider Beach its name.

It gets crowded out there when the word goes out that the surf is good.

But almost everyone—birds and humans—would agree that it's worth it. And every now and then, everything comes together and you catch that perfect wave.

I walked back along the old Adamson House wall. When you see it in surf movies, it's always the side that faces the ocean, although a section of it is missing now, torn down after a truck smashed into it, and it's blotched with mismatched paint, where State Parks has painted over years of graffiti. This is the land side. It's in better shape and still decorated with bits of Malibu Potteries tile.

Here's my favorite detail:

The Malibu Potteries' pseudo-Aztec god has kept a benign, if slightly lunatic, eye on the Surfrider surfers ever since the 1920s, when local legend says pioneer surfers Tom Blake, Sam Reid and Duke Kahanamoku first hit the waves at what is now Surfrider. 

More than anyone else I know, surfers understand the philosophy of living in the moment. Just hours after I took this photo the Santa Ana winds arrived, signaling the end of this surf event, but it didn't matter. "I was out there all morning and it was awesome," a surfer told me as I walked back to my car. It was, too. Carpe diem, dude.

Suzanne Guldimann
1 May 2014

Rodenticide Update

 Ground squirrels like this one are frequent targets of anti-coagulant rodenticide poison. Since coyotes and bob cats depend heavily on ground squirrels for food, the poison quickly spreads into the wildlife food chain. This squirrel has it good, it may end up one day as a snack for a coyote but it won't be poisoned and slowly bleed to death because it's a Malibu Bluffs Park squirrel and the city has agreed to use only non-toxic pest control measures. Photo © 2014 S. Guldimann

Last week, the California Department of Pesticide Control officially banned consumer use of all second generation anticoagulant rodent poison. Here's a link to the official announcement on the ban from Poison Free Malibu, a group of Malibu environmental activists who have led the charge in Malibu and our neighboring communities to get the most toxic rat poisons off the shelf and out of parks and public spaces:

California just banned consumer use of second generation anticoagulant rodent (SGARs) poisons, starting on July 1. 

These are the modern supertoxic rodent poisons that are spreading throughout the ecosystem causing massive exposure, disease, and death beyond the intended rodent targets. Scientific studies tell us that rodent poisons are a leading cause of death among carnivores, and also endanger our children and pets. The horrendous statistics are at the 90% level for the percentage of coyotes, bobcats, hawks, owls, mountain lions and others affected by the SGARs. You can see more details including newspaper articles and technical documents at EarthFriendlyManagement.com.

This is a major step by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation that many of us had been hoping for. It will accomplish a lot, but also leave a major gap remaining.

That gap includes potential over-use by commercial pesticide companies and the concern that pesticide manufacturers will fill shelves with other dangerous rat poisons, such as strychnine—a murder mystery staple in the era before it was replaced with slow-acting poisons like the anti-coagulants.

 Still, wildlife proponents are hopeful that the ban will begin to reduce the levels of rodenticide in the environment and help keep sensitive species like the mountain lion and bob cat from slipping into extinction. There is also the hope that the rest of the nation will follow California's lead, and that anti-coagulant rodenticides will eventually be banned everywhere.

There's a pattern here that mirrors the use of DDT in the 1940s and '50s. DDT was a highly effective pesticide—at least at first. Overzealous use led to resistant insects and then to the near extinction of numerous species of wildlife in the U.S., including the bald eagle and the California Brown Pelican.

The California brown pelican made a comeback after DDT was banned in the 1970s. But the bald eagle, while it recovered elsewhere, never returned to Malibu. We're at the tipping point in the Santa Monica Mountains with the survival of our apex predators—mountain lions, bob cats, coyotes, and even hawks, and owls. 

I remember a time before the pelican population rebounded. Seeing one was a rare treat. Today, it's a a thrill to watch a flight of pelicans soaring overhead. For me, it's always reminder of how close we came to losing them forever and how wonderful it is to have such a magnificent success story during a time when environmental news is so often dire.

Although it's been banned in the US since 1973, it's still a persistent organic pollutant. Numerous studies connect it to human health problems ranging from thyroid disfunction to liver cancer. Ironically, the chemical's inventor, Swiss chemist Paul Hermann Müller, received a Nobel Prize for his discovery.

DDT was manufactured by the ton right here in Southern California. The Montrose Chemical Corporation in Torrance discharged millions of gallons of DDT waste into the Santa Monica Bay at Palos Verdes from 1947-1983.

A vintage ad for the pesticide DDT, complete with singing cow. DDT was spread on everything from the family dog to immigrants arriving in this country. Chemical manufactures warned that the world would end and we would all be devoured by insects if the pesticide was banned. It hasn't happened yet. Scientists raised concerns as early as the 1940s, but it look 30 years to ban DDT in the US and there are still apologists who would like to bring it back, despite the documented ecological toll.

Malibu activist Kian Schulman, who worked to get anticoagulant rodenticides off the shelves of Malibu stores last year and ended up buying the remaining stock in at least two instances, told me about her experiences trying to safely dispose of the poison. It was too toxic for the quarterly hazardous household waste collection event, she said. They wouldn't have anything to do with it. In the end, she had to transport the pesticide to a specific toxic waste facility.

D-con is the major manufacturer of consumer-marketed anticoagulant rodenticide. The statement on the package" "first dead mice appearing 4-5 days after feeding begins" is a major part of the problem. Rodents ingest the poison and then wander away to bleed to death slowly. They become easy targets for wildlife like coyotes and bobcats—and for domestic cats and dogs, and cause lethal secondary poisoning.

An astonishing number of pesticides that are legal and still in use were developed as chemical weapons during WW I and II. It seems insane that in the 21st century we are still waging chemical war against wildlife. The ban on DDT took courage. The chemical manufacturer's lobby is one of the most powerful in the world—just look at Monsanto. I hope California's ban on consumer access to the most detrimental rat poisons is another step away from our chemical dependence.

The Malibu Post took a look at the impact of anticoagulant rodenticides on wildlife in the March 7 post. I also wrote about the issue for last week's Malibu Surfside News.

Suzanne Guldimann
26 March 2014

California will be a little safer for wildlife species that depend on rodents for food, like this white-tailed kite, a bird that already had a near brush with extinction in the early 20th century. © S. Guldimann

For the Birds

Not all dinosaurs vanished 65 million years ago. Birds are, in a very real way, living dinosaurs, and it's not hard to imagine that this California Brown Pelican, with it's remarkable pale blue eye and elliptical pupil, is a velociraptor relative. © S. Guldimann

"The rest of my speech" (he explained to his men)

   "You shall hear when I've leisure to speak it.

But the Snark is at hand, let me tell you again!

   'Tis your glorious duty to seek it!

"'You may seek it with thimbles—and seek it with care;

   You may hunt it with forks and hope;

You may threaten its life with a railway-share;

   You may charm it with smiles and soap—'"

("That's exactly the method," the Bellman bold

   In a hasty parenthesis cried,

"That's exactly the way I have always been told

   That the capture of Snarks should be tried!")

Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark

Not only is it Valentine's and Presidents Day weekend, it's also the 17th annual Great Backyard Bird Count. The official Conell Lab of Ornithology press release states: “From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, bird watchers from more than 100 countries are expected to participate in the 17th annual Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC), February 14–17, 2014."

Anyone anywhere in the world who has at least 15 minutes to count birds on one or more days of the count can participate in the event. Bird watechers come from all over Los Angeles to count birds in Malibu and throughout the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. However, for many Malibu residents a window with a good view of the garden is all that's needed to count an amazing variety of species.

There is a sort of "Hunting of the Snark" quality to the bird count: you may see something stellar, or you may count only crows and sparrows all weekend, despite having seen kingfishers and ospreys perched along the telephone poles on PCH the week before.

No matter what one sees, it's easy and quite fun to enter sightings at www.BirdCount.org  According to the press release, "The information gathered by tens of thousands of volunteers helps track the health of bird populations at a scale that would not otherwise be possible." The count is cosponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society with partner Bird Studies Canada. It's one of the biggest and most successful citizen scientist events in the world and an opportunity for everyone to participate and make a difference.

Birdwatchers of all ages will be out this weekend, armed with hope, if not forks and railroad shares, and with cameras, binoculars notepads and field guides. Nearly 5 million birds have already been tallied as of Saturday. Here in Malibu, maybe there may be white-breasted nuthatches or western blue birds, ruby-crowned kinglets or northern flickers, hooded mergansers or the elusive golden eagles that reportedly roost in a remote corner of Malibu Creek State Park. If you, dear reader, are participating this weekend, please consider sharing your sightings in the comment section here, and good counting!

Around here, you never know what might show up in your own backyard:

I never appreciated just how large the great egret is until one landed in the garden. This spectacular bird can have a five-and-a-half-foot wingspan and stands more than three feet tall. We have several species of egret in Malibu—the showy egret, which is smaller and fluffier, and the great blue heron, which looks like the great egret but is blue-grey instead, are easy to spot year-round residents. The night heron and green bittern live here, too, but are rarely seen in the open. © S. Guldimann

Although egrets are usually seen at the beach at low tide in the tide pools or in wetland areas, where they use their beaks to spear fish and frogs, they also sometimes hunt for lizards and small rodents in fields and even in gardens, and have been known to regard fish ponds as all-you-can-eat egret buffets. © S. Guldimann

Cedar waxwings are sure to make Malibu GBBC lists this year. These sleek, beautiful migratory birds with their distinctive crests stop over in Malibu during their annual north south migrations, taking advantage of gardens with food sources like juniper berries. The birds reedy call is a counterpoint to the laughing song of the robins, and one of the distinctive sounds of winter. They're late this year. They usually show up in late December-early January.  © S. Guldimann

Red-tailed hawks and their smaller cousins the cooper's hawk, the white-tailed kite, and the American kestrel are all backyard birds in Malibu. So are the great horned owl and the barn owl. Raptors, including owls, are beginning to nest, which may be why they are more visible at the moment. This red tail has been keeping an eye on our birdbath. He's a little shy about venturing close to the house, so he gathers courage on the old shed roof before swooping in for a drink. © S. Guldimann

We watch birds, but the birds also watch us. This American robin was less than enthused about being photographed. © S. Guldimann

Unlike the shy robin, the spotted towhee isn't afraid of anyone or anything. It's rusty call is part of the garden soundtrack, as is the rustling sound it makes as it roots for insects and other delicacies in the leaf litter under the trees. In our garden, the spotted towhee likes to eat the bulbs of the oxalis plants, digging them up with its feet and carefully peeling each corm with its beak, before swallowing the tender inner bulb whole.  © S. Guldimann

Here's a more familiar view of the California brown pelican in the first photo. This species came perilously close to extinction in the 1950s due to DDT poisoning. When my parents first moved to Malibu in 1969, seeing a pelican was a rare and wonderful sight. My father used to say that the pelican symbolized hope for a better tomorrow. Unlike its theropod ancestors, the pelican survived the threat of extinction and is today one of Malibu's most common—and popular sea birds. By taking part in the Great Backyard Bird Count this weekend, Malibuites can help gather data on pelicans and other avian species that will help biologists help birds.