16-07-2025
Legally protected nesting birds delayed fire cleanup on 200-plus burned properties
Nearly three months after the Palisades fire burned down our family home on now aptly named Carbon Canyon, I was told on April Fools' Day that a debris removal crew would soon be clearing its charred remains. Thank goodness, the cavalry finally was on its way.
But just minutes after a giant excavator toppled our two brick chimneys, a muscle-bound foreman called a halt to the work with a shrill whistle. Workers huddled. Supervisors phoned. One of them pronounced: Work clearing our 77-year-old ranch house must stop.
The Army Corps of Engineers wanted to make sure that asbestos in our house's foundation had all been cleared away. That was confirmed within a day or two. All the hazardous material had been bagged and trucked off.
But still we waited. Weeks passed without much of an update.
It wasn't until June that I learned the main reason for the delay. On a garbled voicemail, I could make out only that it had something to do with 'habitat' and 'stress.' When I made my way to Carbon Canyon, I found a tiny sign posted at the end of our driveway. 'Nesting Bird Buffer,' it read. 'Restricted area. DO NOT ENTER.'
Debris cleanup crews keep a lookout for family treasures, mature trees and even the graves of buried pets. They checked all those boxes in the home, where I grew up with my parents, brother and sister and myriad dogs. But I had not realized their work plans also paid special attention to wild birds.
An Army Corps contractor explained that they were following the requirements of the Migratory Bird Act of 1918, signed by President Wilson, to stop a massive kill-off of birds beneficial to humankind. The law prohibits 'taking' without a permit not only birds but their nests and eggs too.
Environmental observers had fanned out across the burn zones to make sure the cleanup attended to the rules.
Our property was one of 216 in the burn zones (80 in the Palisades and Malibu and 136 in Altadena) where cleanups were put at least briefly on hold to try to protect nesting birds and their young.
In cases when the homeowners could not afford to wait, bird observers would turn into bird movers. A total of 181 fire rescue birds (including bushtits, acorn wookpeckers and red-shouldered hawks) were recently still in the care of the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach.
The work hiatus at our place began after a contractor spotted a pair of mourning doves on our hillside. The doves cleared out in a few days, but then observers spotted at least two pairs of hooded orioles, building nests high up in our heavily scorched palm trees.
Of course it was the orioles!
Each spring of my semirural eastern Malibu childhood, the orioles would take center stage. While other critters tended to wear the muted colors of the chaparral-choked hillsides, the orioles flew in from their wintering grounds in Mexico sporting a much more rakish look. The females wore elegant yellow feathers, while the males sported bright orange 'hoods' and midnight-black wings.
The birds' startling colors seized our attention. And their family life held it. They returned each year to banana trees right beside our swimming pool. On the underside of the banana fronds, they'd weave straw and pine needles into tear-drop-shaped baskets. Nests so finely crafted they could have hung in a gallery.
Then, and now, they also constitute a crucial link in the food chain, especially notable for keeping the insect population in check.
I hadn't thought about these old neighbors for years, though I visited the old house frequently, until my mom's death about a year ago.
Now, they'd delayed us, and others, in getting on with whatever comes next. The response has been more open than you'd expect.
'I lost my home and would happily delay for the short amount of time it would take for these eggs to hatch,' Kelly Jackson, whose home burned down in the Eaton fire, said on social media. She wasn't alone.
Most of us around the fire zones have come to realize that it will take much more than concrete, Sheetrock and double-pane windows to restore our communities.
In our stretch of the sagebrush, it might take the brilliant, plucky orioles. They are among the grittiest survivors, a reminder of what endures.
Kristen Breck says, 'Stinson Beach!!'
Jaime Del Carpio says, 'Crystal Cove.'
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Today's photo is from Times contributor Ron De Angelis at the workshop of master refinisher Aaron Moore who shares his tips on the 'lost art' of refinishing.
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