Birds

It was like a lottery-winning moment for birders. I looked up through the windshield, and there it was: brown and striped, gliding toward a tangle of reeds a few feet from our car — an American bittern. Bitterns are common at Gray Lodge Wildlife Area, but they're elusive and rarely seen. Even an ornithologist friend has seen only two or three. Gray Lodge is one of more than half a dozen wildlife refuges in the Sacramento Valley, a habitat-rich basin that comprises the northern end of the Central Valley from Redding south to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

GOOD NEWS: The recent rains were a boon to birds, because more insects and seed crops improve nesting success, says Sylvia Gallagher of the Audubon Society. . . . Among the migrating birds that will begin nesting in Orange County in the next few weeks are warbling vireos, Pacific slope flycatchers, above, and hooded orioles; year-round residents that nest locally include acorn woodpeckers, black phoebes and California gnatcatchers.

Illegal trappers on Cyprus killed more than half a million protected birds this fall to sell them at local restaurants, conservationists said. The worst massacre in four years came despite a European Union ban on the decades-old tradition, said BirdLife Cyprus Executive Director Martin Hellicar. Migratory birds cooked over coals are a traditional delicacy and sell for as much as $7 each in restaurants. Hellicar said the problem continues because poachers' profits are huge.

Birders have been converging at South El Monte's Legg Lake for a rare sighting -- and possible photographs -- of a tundra swan and a wood stork that have been hanging out with the blue herons and double-crested cormorants that call the area home. Both birds have strayed far beyond their normal ranges, birders say. Judging from the pattern of pinkish warts on its head, the wood stork, which has a long curved beak and stands about 3 feet tall, could be the same bird seen earlier this month in Orange County.

I am really disappointed in Jancis Robinson's article (Wine, "Can Cork Survive?," March 17). She entices us bird lovers to read the article and drops the subject, never to refer to birds again. MYRON D. OAKES San Marino

How do you translate the barred owl's call -- Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you? -- into Spanish? Translating bird "voices" was one of the trickiest parts of producing "Guia de campo Kaufman a las aves de Norteamerica," the first Spanish-language field guide to North American birds. "There have been field guides to Mexico in Spanish, but never one for North America," says Taryn Roeder of Houghton Mifflin, publisher of the guide.

A Santa Monica woman living in a battered-women's shelter has become the victim of a crime: someone stole two pet birds from her car. The woman--who asked to be identified only as Dorothy--hopes someone will come forward with information about her cockatiels, which were stolen last Saturday. Since then, she has posted flyers and gone door-to-door in the neighborhood. "They were the only family I had," Dorothy said. "It was just me and my birds, trying to start a new life."

Caravan's 10-day "Costa Rica Natural Paradise" takes participants from coast to coast, where they can learn about efforts to save green turtles on the Atlantic and then relax on the Pacific. There is plenty of wildlife to see, including howler monkeys on the trail of Hacienda Pinilla, butterfly swarms (and 300 species of birds) in Tortuguero National Park and crocodiles during the end-of-the-trip Tarcoles River cruise. Itinerary: San Jose to the Poas volcano, Cloud Forest, Butterfly Garden, Tortuguero National Park, Fortuna, Cano Negro, Arenal volcano, Hanging Bridges, Guanacaste, the Tarcoles River and back to San Jose Dates: Departures available through 2011.

Mallards floating on placid ponds, egrets standing at attention at the water's edge and blue herons soaring across the sky all signal autumn in the Sepulveda Basin. The 2,100-acre preserve is home to about 150 species of birds, said Rosemarie White, head of the San Fernando Valley Canada Geese Project, a wildlife group that every fall counts the number of migratory geese in the Valley.

Several major bird populations have plummeted over the last four decades as development transformed the nation's landscape, but conservation efforts have managed to stave off potential extinctions of others, according to a comprehensive survey released Thursday by the Interior Department and outside experts.