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This festival's really for the birds By Bill Varble CRESCENT CITY, Calif . -- The trouble with whales is they draw attention from the birds. Surf scoters, pigeon guillemots and even marbled murrelets are forgotten as the mottled back of a gray whale breaks the water off the bow of the Bottom Line, a 37-foot charter boat out of Brookings. "Whoa," the cry goes up. "Thar she blows!" We sailed from the marina at Crescent City for a Friday afternoon of near-shore pelagic bird-watching. We're not headed for the realm of the albatross today. Our destination is Castle Rock, a large sea stack off Crescent City, one of the most important sea bird nesting grounds between the Farallon Islands off San Francisco and the Aleutian Islands off Alaska. "Whales have been doing some weird things the last couple of days," said Bottom Line skipper Don Crisp. "They're staying down a long time." He shuts the engine off and there is silence, broken only by the mewing of the gulls and then the short, quick wingbeats of a pair of common murres, funny little penguin-like birds that don't look like they're designed for flight. The whale doesn't come back, and Crisp pilots the boat to Castle Rock, where thousands of birds jockey for position. Rob Hewitt, who's guiding the birdwatchers, says in a few hours the rock will play host to the world's entire population of Aleutian Canada geese -- 35,000 of them. There's a stirring on the boat. On the port side are two marbled murrelets, small, smudgy brown sea birds with an unusual lifestyle. They nest in old-growth trees as far inland as 25 miles, then head for the open ocean to dine on eels and baitfish in the morning. "Why do they need old trees?" a tyke asks. "Because they need a big, horizontal, mossy limb to lay their eggs on," Hewitt says. A couple hours later, chilled by the salt air, warmed by the March sun, welcomed by sea lions and harbor porpoises, we're back at dockside. Leonard Richardson, 76, of Medford, pronounces the day "delightful." "Some people get sick once and that's it," says Crisp. "But these birders, they've got to see that one bird." Lots of birders plan on seeing that one bird and many more at the second annual Aleutian Goose Festival in Crescent City, Calif. The festival continues today and Sunday in and around this small town on the Northern California coast. During the weekend, field trips and talks by scientists (requiring registration) mix with free or low-cost activities open to families and drop-ins. So there's pretty much something for everybody, from experts and avid birdwatchers to budding naturalists and kids. The festival celebrates the comeback of the Aleutian goose, a short-necked subspecies of the Canada goose. All but extinct in the 1970s, the geese are considered an Endangered Species Act success story. Each autumn the entire goose population migrates south to the valleys of central California to winter. In the spring they head north to the Aleutian Islands. On their way, they spend time here, feeding in the fields during the lengthening spring days, taking to the air en masse at sunset to repair to Castle Rock for the night. Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA