Natural Perspectives:

A pair of environmental boots sits empty this week. Big boots. Boots that will be difficult to fill.

Loren Hays, a birder, biologist and long-time Huntington Beach resident who was retired from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, died April 18. We will miss him sorely.

Although his unexpected death was shocking to us, somehow it seemed fitting that Loren left us on the eve of Earth Day. He was an important environmentalist in town, an activist who fought hard to protect the birds and other wildlife of Bolsa Chica and Huntington Central Park. Not one for the limelight, this soft-spoken man usually worked in the background, quietly but effectively.

Loren was a staff ornithologist and senior biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service office in Carlsbad. But with Loren, birding was a passion.

When he wasn’t birding for work, he birded for pleasure. He had probably logged more hours birding Bolsa Chica and making wildlife observations than anyone else.

He kept careful records, which proved useful to us when we prepared an official bird list for the city many years ago. He was always happy to share his data, and we knew we could count on its accuracy.

Loren wrote a report in 2005 on the first volunteer monitoring of the fenced California least tern and Western snowy plover nesting area at Huntington State Beach near the mouth of the Santa Ana River.

In this program, local volunteers monitor the fenced tern colonies. They educate the public about the need to not disturb the nesting birds. The volunteers also keep a watch out for predators, which can range from peregrine falcons to great blue herons to coyotes to ground squirrels.

There is a similar program at the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge. These volunteer programs are essential to the breeding success of those fragile bird populations.

“Thanks to one and all for your contributions in conserving terns and plovers at Huntington State Beach,” Loren wrote. “A special thanks to Dave Pryor and all of the docents for your diligence and clearly important efforts in engaging the public in discussions related to these species’ conservation. I could sense the contributions that the docents made every time I visited the area.”

In his off hours, Loren was a dedicated student of the birdlife of Huntington Central Park. He was a staunch advocate for maintaining Central Park as wildlife habitat. His detailed records of migrant bird usage of Central Park played a key role in at least one City Council action — the decision not to relocate the dog park to an important habitat area on the Gothard Street side of the park.

Loren also monitored the migrations of endangered Southwestern willow flycatchers through the park. These birds are expanding their breeding range down the Santa Ana River. Loren’s participation more than a decade ago on a multi-agency committee about park wildlife was responsible for a federal grant to Huntington Beach that was one of the early steps in the restoration of the Shipley Nature Center. Great progress has been made there during the past few years in removing non-natives and establishing native trees and plants. Loren predicted the flycatchers would nest in the park some day.

Loren was very excited to have heard a Southwestern willow flycatcher male singing at Shipley Nature Center last fall. Normally they sing only in the spring when they are staking out nesting territories. He speculated the bird liked what it saw at Shipley and was announcing its intention to nest there this summer. Our hearts ache that he won’t be around to see if that happens.

After he retired, Loren spent a lot of time at Bolsa Chica, pulling up iceplant on the new tern nesting area behind the fence that was part of the 2006 restoration. He and Peter Knapp, a renowned local bird photographer, volunteered hour after hour, day after day, to keep the nesting areas behind the fences clear of weeds. The two of them cleared literally acres of iceplant by themselves to make the flat sandy area suitable for nesting of endangered California least terns and threatened Western snowy plovers. Loren was kind enough to phone us a few weeks ago to thank Lou for the work she and her Orange County Conservation Corps members had done over the past couple of years to remove iceplant and improve habitat on the sand dunes at Bolsa Chica.

Huntington Beach has lost a great environmental voice and a true friend. We extend our deepest sympathies to his wife, Debra, and daughter, Rachel.

A memorial service will be at 1 p.m. Friday at the bandstand below the library in Huntington Central Park.

VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].