Natural Perspectives:

Summer is winding down. For many, Labor Day weekend marks the end of summer, with lazy afternoons on the beach and barbecues in the back yard. Here in Huntington Beach, we have that summer beach party thing going on all year, although we’ll need sweaters and sweatshirts at night in a couple of months.

We certainly didn’t need our hoodies this past weekend. We sweltered under smoke-filled, 90-degree skies. Vic and I got by with closing the house up during the day and opening it back up when temperatures outside exceeded those inside. By using these passive cooling techniques, we kept indoor temperatures under 78 degrees. But when we finally opened the windows near sundown, smoke from the Station fire drifted in, irritating our eyes.

Because there are so few of these hot days in Huntington Beach, we get by without air conditioning at our house. Air conditioners are the single largest consumer of electricity in the average American home. The less electricity we use, the less carbon dioxide goes into the atmosphere, and the slower the planet will warm. Global warming contributes to increased drought and increased fires in our local wildlands. And that impacts the health of all of us as we breathe in ash-laden air. It’s all connected.

One of our favorite end-of-summer events is the annual California least tern barbecue at park headquarters at Huntington State Beach. No, we don’t roast terns. We celebrate the end of tern nesting season in Huntington Beach with a potluck cookout.

Volunteers in the Eyes on the Colony program gather each August to hear park biologist David Pryor present the results of nesting success or failure. This year was average with 409 California least tern fledglings produced at the beach.

The Eyes on the Colony program began at Huntington State Beach five years ago. The 8.9 acres of fenced beach at the mouth of the Santa Ana River was the first fully protected least tern preserve in California. But even though the colony’s nesting area was fenced, the terns were being preyed upon by ravens, crows, herons, hawks, falcons, foxes, and even dogs that people allowed to go over the fence and run amok among the tern chicks and eggs. Dogs aren’t allowed at all at the state beach, much less inside a protected colony of endangered birds. The colony needed guards.

So David Pryor organized a group of volunteers, with Cheryl Egger as coordinator. These stalwart souls sit at the beach for hours at a time. They watch the colony all summer long, observing, reporting and educating the public.

The volunteers also note the presence of predators such as crows and hawks, which are removed by wildlife biologists if they are preying on the endangered terns.

Biologists at the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve have reported crows working in teams to completely destroy a nesting colony. The crows space themselves about five feet apart and walk across the nesting area, gobbling up every egg and chick they find. Such predation can completely ruin a nesting season. Volunteers at the state beach prevent that from happening.

Threatened western snowy plovers also nest on beaches. But they prefer to nest outside the fence between the tern colony and the high tide line.

The volunteers must keep a sharp eye out for them as well. The volunteers alert beach visitors to the presence of the well-camouflaged birds so they won’t get stepped on.

This summer, birders were excited by the presence of a couple of gull-billed terns at the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve.

While common in many parts of the world, these birds are rare in our neck of the wetlands. Like most terns, they hunt by diving for fish in the water. Unlike other terns, these birds also take insects on the wing and hunt over marshes for whatever they can find on land.

The gull-billed terns at Bolsa Chica, most unfortunately, took advantage of the breeding western snowy plovers there, eating all of the chicks. There are only 1,500 western snowy plovers left in the United States. Their numbers are declining, so this was a tragic loss. The status of Western snowy plovers may move from threatened to endangered if this decline continues.

California least terns are doing better than the plovers. Their numbers had been down to about 2,000 adult birds in the early 1980s, but with the various protections afforded them at different sites, their numbers have rebounded to between 7,000 and 8,000 birds.

The condition of the ocean definitely affects the terns’ food source. Terns dive for small fish such as anchovies, sardines and topsmelt. Warming of the ocean can affect these birds by sending their prey down out of range into cooler waters.

Once again, we see how the web of life is so delicately interconnected.

Our collective use of increasing amounts of air conditioning due to hotter weather contributes to even more global warming, which in turn contributes to species decline and extinction.

California least terns began visiting the nesting colony at Huntington State Beach in late April, with the first nest observed in mid-May.

By early July, the first of the chicks began to fly and follow their parents, learning to catch fish on their own. And by July 28 this year, they headed south on their long migratory journey. With luck, the parents will be back next year to nest again. The juveniles stay in South America their first year, and won’t be back here until 2011, when they are old enough to breed.

And so the cycle continues. The terns arrive, mate, fledge their young, and fly south. We have an end-of-summer barbecue at the beach to celebrate their nesting success. Fires burn in the foothills and mountains. We swelter with smoke in the air. Bring on winter!

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