Tree trimmers stop work to save Egrets nests in Solana Beach call …

SOLANA BEACH — Egrets nesting in palm trees in a parking lot on South Acacia Avenue got a reprieve from the city this week after tree trimmers put their chainsaws away.

SOLANA BEACH — Egrets nesting in palm trees in a parking lot on South Acacia Avenue got a reprieve from the city this week after tree trimmers put their chainsaws away.

Solana Beach business owner Doug Quinn said Wednesday that he and others called the city to stop the tree-trimming after noticing that the birds were being disturbed.

Quinn said that when the city began trimming the palm trees Tuesday in preparation for this weekend’s Fiesta del Sol, the feathery white birds and their nests were threatened. The two-day street festival is expected to draw about 50,000 people to the small coastal city.

“The parents were flying in circles,” Quinn said of the egrets. He said there are multiple nests in six to eight trees in the lot at 115 S. Acacia Avenue at W. Plaza Street, about a block from the ocean.

Solana Beach City Manager David Ott said Wednesday that tree trimmers stopped work on the trees Tuesday after discovering the nests.

“They were under instructions that if they found any nesting birds to stop, and that’s why they stopped,” Ott said.

He said there were no displaced birds and that once the birds have finished their nesting cycle, the tree trimmers, who are contracted by the city, will come back and finish the job.

“It’ll look like an eyesore for awhile, but the birds are still there,” Ott said.

Egrets make their nests with twigs and sticks and usually lay between three and four pale, blue-green eggs. The babies hatch in 24 days.

State Department of Fish and Game officials could not be reached for comment.

“I’m glad they stopped,” Quinn said of the tree trimmers. “In my opinion there are just things that are more important than Fiesta del Sol.”