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Help protect California's Ormond Beach Donate Now: Support our efforts to protect Ormond Beach. Go Deeper    A Walter Fuller Audio Story Hear more about Walter Fuller and Ormond Beach in a radio story by KCLU. Listen in as KCLU follows Walter and Sandi Matsumoto, project director for the Conservancy, on a tour of the birds of Ormond Beach. Jean Harris: Champion of Ormond Beach Migratory Bird Program Los Angeles-Ventura Project Ormond Beach Press Release Male killdeer on Ormond Beach. Photo © Walter Fuller Least tern in Ormond Beach wetlands. Photo © Walter Fuller

Each year from spring to autumn, the dunes at Ormond Beach near Oxnard are encircled with bright orange mesh. The four foot tall temporary fencing creates a nursery for endangered California least terns and Western snowy plovers.

In mid-October 2006, The Nature Conservancy removed the fencing, bringing to a close the most successful nesting season at Ormond Beach in many years with 24 hatched plovers and 44 fledged least terns.

This comeback can be attributed to three key factors: additional security fencing, a new city ordinance banning paragliders from flying over the nesting area and a dedicated volunteer, Walter Fuller.

Daily Patrols and Incredible Commitment

For more than 11 years, Fuller has watched over Ormond’s birds, patrolling the beach almost daily.

“His commitment is amazing,” said Sandi Matsumoto, project director for the Conservancy in California. “He does this voluntarily, for the birds. The 2006 nesting season was one of the most successful in years and Walter was a big part of that.”

Fuller works nights so that he can spend his days monitoring the beach, watching for injured birds and keeping foot traffic, human and canine, away from the nesting area. A least tern “nest” is nothing more than a slight depression in the sand. The quarter-sized eggs and tiny hatchlings mimic the speckled beige sand, making them almost invisible. This means the dunes must be off-limits until every bird has fledged.

Only 15 Western snowy plover nests successfully hatched in 2005 at Ormond Beach. In 2006, that number reached 24. And while all of the least tern nests at Ormond Beach were abandoned in 2005 and there were no fledges, summer 2006 saw 36 nests hatched and 44 young least terns successfully fledged.

“It feels good to help these endangered birds make a comeback,” says Fuller. “Watching them hatch and grow is all the reward I need. I hope next year will be even better.”

Come March, Fuller will be waiting and watching. “This work is the love of my life. I’ll walk this beach until the day I die.”

Learn more about the Conservancy's Los Angeles-Ventura project and our work in Ormond Beach.

HELP US PROTECT CALIFORNIA'S WETLANDS

Thank you for helping to save the Last Great Places in California.

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Sandi Matsumoto/TNC (Walter Fuller standing next to fencing at Ormond Beach); Photo © Sandi Matsumoto/TNC (Least tern chicks on Ormond Beach);