Thursday, August 14, 2008

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.

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