A people-watcher feels slightly out of place on a bird-watching expedition in Descanso Gardens

We went up to Descanso Gardens last Sunday morning for the annual Jack and Denny Smith Bird Walk.

It used to be called simply the Jack Smith Bird Walk, but in recent years they have added my wife’s name, probably because she has always gone with me and shared the excitements and discomforts of this curious event.

I believe it was the 15th annual walk, though it may only have been the 14th. The San Fernando Audubon Society, which sponsors it, has lost count.

It is always on the second Sunday of December. It begins at 8 o’clock, just inside the main gate. So you have to set your alarm early and get up and dress warmly. It’s free.

There were about 100 walkers this year. That is obviously more than there ought to be on a bird walk, since large numbers of people naturally scare the birds into hiding.

However, I’m afraid this has become more of a social event than a serious bird walk, though almost everyone brings binoculars and bird guides, and some bring telescopes.

It was a chilly morning. The sky was overcast. We were a motley group as we set out over the walks behind our leader, Warren Peterson.

I tend to get into conversations with other walkers and fall behind the leader, so I rarely hear what he says, and I rarely see the birds he sights.

I heard Peterson call out that he had seen a red-shouldered hawk and an Anna’s hummingbird. “Some are beginning their courting season already,” he said, but I wasn’t sure which species he meant was beginning its mating season. It seemed a little too cold to me.

I did hear him say that the hawks had a wingspread of six feet, and that they ate rodents and small snakes, but didn’t eat birds, which seemed rather nice of them.

“Oh, they’ll take nestlings out of the nest,” he added, somewhat spoiling the image, “but they don’t take birds.”

Oh, well, no species is perfect.

He called our attention to a brown towhee scratching in the rubble under a tree. “Notice,” he said, “that the towhee scratches with both feet at once.”

Sure enough, the towhee would hop up, scratch with both feet at once, and then come down an inch or two behind where he started.

“He has to be careful,” Peterson said, “not to fall on his face.”

We came to the observation house by the pond. This is a favorite stop on the walk. It always has a good many ducks and widgeons on it, and sometimes, if you’re lucky, you see a great blue heron.

The heron was not in residence. But Peterson located a green-backed heron nesting in a clump of branches. He set up his scope so we all could see the green-backed heron. All I could see was his back, which looked like a green cushion.

He also spotted some wood ducks on the far side of the pond. The wood duck is so gaudy he seems more like an invention of Dr. Seuss than of nature. Two or three of them were swimming rapidly, as if they really had someplace to go.

Peterson said wood ducks are precocial, meaning that they are born fully active, so that they must feed themselves. This is especially hard on newborn wood ducks, he said, because their parents build their nests 30 feet high in trees, and when the baby steps out to forage for food, he falls 30 feet to the ground. That’s when he learns about life.

There were several ring-necked ducks, but they were all males. Not a female in sight.

“That isn’t right,” said a young woman at my elbow.

We surged back on the path and someone sighted a red-breasted sapsucker. I think it was a red-breasted sapsucker. It may have been a red- bellied sapsucker, or else a red- vested seersucker.

The people who name birds are always changing their names. For example, the red-breasted sapsucker is actually a yellow-bellied sapsucker; why he is called a red-breasted sapsucker I have no idea.

“Trapdoor spider!” Peterson called out.

We were galvanized. When you are out watching birds you don’t expect to encounter spiders.

Peterson pointed to an almost invisible circle in the dirt, among tiny plants, on a bank beside the road. He opened his knife and lifted the trap door, exposing a hole in the ground about three-quarters of an inch in diameter. Peterson said the trap door spider can hear insects approaching on the ground, and when one comes knocking at his door, he opens the trap and devours him.

Peterson pointed out a beehive and fixed his scope on it. “You can see the comb,” he said. “It’s just as perfect as if it wasn’t made in nature.”

A woman near me said, “That’s a funny thing to say.”

It was. But that is the purpose of a bird walk. It makes you think about man’s relationship to God.

We walked through the camellia gardens. Pink and white camellias grew on large bushes in the shade of live oak trees and Australian ferns. Sunlight filtered down through the treetops and shone on the tiny oak leaves scattered on the path like old coins.

We stopped at a bench at the end of the walk and Peterson summed up. We had seen 33 birds, including the great egret, which I missed.

I greatly regretted not having seen the great egret.