Egrets ruffle feathers

WILLOWS, CALIF. — Nobody knows why the birds have staked their claim on this farm town 90 miles north of Sacramento.

But it's the third consecutive year and, by all accounts, the worst.

"The community has had enough," said Steve Holsinger, Willows' city manager. "They're just fed up."

Memorial Park, a square-block stretch of green near the center of town, is encircled with yellow police tape and is off limits to normal use. More than 1,000 birds, mainly snowy egrets and some black-crested night herons, are nesting there, turning patches of lawn a lunar gray and showering the grass with broken shells and feathers. Officials say the guano is slowly killing 60-foot-tall redwoods and pines.

In the park and on bordering streets, county crews have picked up more than 1,200 dead chicks that toppled from nests on high. Neighbors complain about stench and flies, and half-digested crayfish raining down on them as they try to dine outdoors.

With the birds protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, some see the closed park as an example of well-intended government regulation gone awry. The law prevents Glenn County, which owns the land, from chasing the creatures out during breeding and nesting -- a period that started in April and won't end until sometime in September.

"The rights of birds are outweighing the rights of humans," said Jane Foster, a mother of six who lives near the park and is reluctant to let her children play in the yard. "I tried to plant a garden, but I didn't get far because of the smell. I'm just tired of the whole thing."

Earlier this year, a proposal to thwart the birds by cutting down the trees stirred outrage, partly because that might just drive the birds to roost somewhere else nearby. Before nesting began in earnest, county employees tried to scare them off with air horns, but the wailing disrupted court hearings.

"We had some success, but a judge said if we did it one more time he'd have everyone arrested," said Bobbe Lewis, the Glenn County official who oversees the park.

Flanked by City Hall, the local courthouse, Glenn County offices, the Sheriff's Department and Willows High School, the park is at the heart of a city that is more bird-friendly than most. The high school team is called the Honkers. Birders visit Willows en route to the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge, a massive expanse a few miles away that's a winter destination for hundreds of thousands of geese and other waterfowl.