We’re dreaming of a green Christmas

VIC LEIPZIG AND LOU MURRAY

With sunny, Santa Ana wind-warmed days drifting by under crystal blue

skies, it’s hard to believe that Christmas is nearly here. It seems

more like summer. Only the snowy caps on the mountains and cool

evenings tell the seasonal truth.

To restoration biologists, winter means planting time for

California native plants. On Saturday, the Bolsa Chica Conservancy

and the Bolsa Chica Stewards held planting days. While Vic was giving

his last lecture of the semester to his fall birding class for

seniors, Grace Adams and I lead 10 Bolsa Chica Conservancy volunteers

in planting 120 California sagebrush, white sage, coyote brush and

coastal prickly pear cactus on Little Mesa at Warner Avenue and

Pacific Coast Highway.

Guy Stivers and Kelly Keller of the Bolsa Chica Stewards led their

group of about 60 people, mostly high school students, across the

Warner Avenue bridge to Bolsa Chica mesa, where they planted 200

coastal sage scrub plants. Over the 10 years that the Stewards have

been at work, their plantings at the tidegate overlook have matured.

Now they’re concentrating on planting closer to Warner Avenue.

Digging in the soil is hard work, so we took plenty of breaks to

chat. Several of us, like Marinka Horack, Guy and I, also work at

Shipley Nature Center. Claire Grozinger volunteers at the Wildlife

Care Center as well as working with the conservancy. Nancy Harris is

a mainstay of the Stewards, the Friends of Shipley Nature Center, and

the Urban Forest in Central Park. She drives to Tree of Life Nursery

in San Juan Capistrano before planting day for each of these groups

to pick up plants.

While we worked, we swapped information between groups. As Claire

was planting sagebrush for the conservancy, she picked up fishhooks

left behind by careless fishermen. Claire said that she had recently

cared for a brown pelican at the Wildlife Care Center that had

swallowed five fishhooks. Picking up discarded hooks might prevent

yet another avian victim from ending up at the care center.

As I was placing pots of coyote brush along the northern edge of

the wetlands along Warner Avenue, one of the Stewards mentioned that

they were planning on replacing the existing rail fence and extending

the fence around the entire perimeter of restored wetland cells near

Warner and Pacific Coast Highway. What a great idea!

The conservancy planted spiny rush, coyote brush and saltbush

along the wetland edge both to restore the habitat and to try to keep

people off the mudflats. But the plants are still too small to act as

effective barriers, and people continue to trample the fragile

wetlands. While we there, we saw dozens of people taking a shortcut

over the mudflats, crushing the saltwort, shoregrass and pickleweed.

One jogger took a long sprint down the mudflat, oblivious to the

fragile wetland plants, some of them newly installed. To the

untrained eye, wetland plants and coastal sage scrub must look like

just so many more weeds. The idea of staying off such vegetation

seems to be a foreign concept. A fence is sorely needed to protect

this fragile wetland area.

Restoration days always offer interesting finds. For example, the

Stewards found a 5-foot gopher snake while they were working. After

showing this harmless snake to the students, they released it on the

east side of the chain link fence on the mesa.

When the Stewards told us about the snake they had found, it

reminded Laura Bandy of the conservancy that she had seen two baby

rattlesnakes last week while she was leading a tour for some

students. One of the snakes was dead, so she picked it up to show

them its tiny nub of a rattle.

The other little snake was about to be dead. When Laura spotted

it, the snake was grasped firmly in the deadly beak of a great blue

heron. The baby snake gamely struck at the heron’s neck, but the

heron whipped it back and forth and slammed it on the ground until it

went limp. Then the heron gulped it down.

The kids were awestruck. They asked Laura if that sort of thing

happened all the time at the Bolsa Chica. She replied, “Yes, it

does.”

That’s life in the wild. That’s why all of us work so hard to

improve the habitat by pulling out nonnative plants and planting

natives. Year by year, our wild areas are improving from the bottom

of the food chain on up. By removing invasive nonnative plants and

replacing them with California native plants, we are improving the

habitat for native wildlife. By working on plants, which are at the

bottom of the food chain, we benefit the insects, then the reptiles

and birds, and finally the mammals. It’s all part of the web of life.

But habitat improvement takes more than volunteers to dig holes.

It also takes money to buy plants and materials, support paid staff,

and run educational programs.

As this year draws to a close, we hope that you will remember our

local environmental groups and give generously to the Wildlife Care

Center, Friends of Shipley Nature Center, Bolsa Chica Conservancy,

Bolsa Chica Stewards, Amigos de Bolsa Chica, Huntington Beach

Wetlands Conservancy, and the Huntington Beach Tree Society.

Together, we can make a difference.

Peace on earth, and good will to all.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].