Retired Merced County teacher dedicated to helping birds

On a four-wheeler, with an orchard ladder strapped to its side, Steve Simmons set out across the dried grass of the Flying M Ranch in eastern Merced County.

Simmons gunned his all-terrain vehicle, bumping over rocks and dodging black cows with weeks-old calves at their sides.

Simmons' goal was a little handmade box, set about 6 feet off the ground.

It wasn't just any box. With a hole in its front, it held an entire family of barn owls. Six 3-week old chicks who hissed and spit at Simmons, plus a mother owl, who just glared at him.

Simmons has made it his goal in life to help out cavity-dwelling birds -- those birds that use a hole in a tree or other type of cavity to nest. To that end, Simmons builds boxes and has done so for years. He retired from a teaching position and has since devoted his life to birds.

But he does more than just build the boxes. He also bands the birds, to find out where various species end up, and whether they come back to their home turf to nest.

"I started back when I was teaching," Simmons recalled, as he banded a baby owl. His woodshop students started building and selling owl boxes to farmers who wanted to attract the birds to their orchards and farms. Owls hunt by night and like to eat rodents. A nesting pair and their young can eat more than 1,000 rodents a year.

One owl box that Simmons checked had 11 dead voles in it, laid out in a row. There were three brand new owls in the box, and eggs still hatching. Simmons said the male owl of a pair does the hunting for the first few weeks of the chicks' lives, while the mother owl stays in the box with the babies.

Simmons figures he has banded more than 40,000 birds in his life. He works several areas with his banding, and has banded more than 2,400 birds this year alone.

Simmons also bands and checks out kestrels, mourning doves, tree swallows and others. "When I started, there were just a few kestrels (on the Flying M)," Simmons said. "Now there are dozens of the birds."

In 2003, Simmons found only three kestrels that he could find to band on the ranch. In 2009, that number was up to 146. "They just needed a place to nest," Simmons explained.

Tree swallows have also made themselves at home on the ranch. In 2005, there were 30 young swallows banded. That number jumped to 221 in 2009.

Other birds that Simmons bands are screech owls, ash-throated flycatchers and house wrens.

In a box where a family of kestrels had been raised, the young birds were perched on fences, flying around the box and keeping a sharp eye on the human guy.

Another bird that Simmons has helped establish at the Flying M and other local ranches is the burrowing owl. The owl also eats rodents, but is more active during the day.

"When I found out there were burrowing owls out here, I decided to try to help them," Simmons said.

That meant digging holes in rock-hard ground, then figuring out a way to keep an eye on them.

Simmons mounted a camera outfit on his three-wheeler. He can put the camera down a hole and see how many baby owls are there.

On the day that Simmons made the rounds of the Flying M, the adult burrowing owls flew a short ways away from their hole, then watched as Simmons set up his camera.

"This burrow is doing well," Simmons said, peering at his small camera. "There are a bunch of healthy little babies in here."

On the dry pastures of the Flying M, Simmons uses his orchard ladder to reach his bird boxes and then bands the babies. He has found birds nesting in Merced County that were fledged in Idaho, where they were banded by other bird enthusiasts.

Another bird that Simmons builds boxes for is the wood duck. The ducks usually lay eggs in a hole in a tree, but are happy to use Simmons' boxes. Wood duck boxes dot farms and ranches throughout the county, Simmons said, and as long as the boxes are located near water, the ducks do well.

Kelly Rathburn, an outreach biologist for the California Waterfowl Association, a nonprofit conservation group, said that putting up boxes for wood ducks has helped bring the birds back from near extinction.

"In the early 1900s, the wood duck had lost habitat and was almost extinct," Rathburn said. "By putting up boxes, we've helped more than 500,000 baby birds hatch last year."

Simmons knows that his work is important, and he wants others to know how much it helps the birds.

"We need more people to get involved," Simmons said. "The birds are depending on us."

Reporter Carol Reiter can be reached at (209) 385-2486 or creiter@mercedsun-star.com.