Natural Perspectives:

Some of the best aspects of summer for Vic and me are his summer birding and natural history classes, which are offered through Irvine Valley College. Vic leads overnight field trips for birding senior citizens, hitting a few of California’s top vacation spots each summer. While he goes birding with the class, I take photographs of flowers, wildlife and scenery.

So far this summer, we’ve traveled to Wrightwood and to the Eastern Sierras with the bird class, with trips to Morro Bay and Tejon Ranch coming up. We returned from the Eastern Sierras last week.

I have come to really love the drive on Highway 395 across the Mojave Desert, through Lone Pine, Independence, Big Pine and Bishop to Mammoth Lakes, and on to Lee Vining and Mono Lake. There is so much to see that we still haven’t explored it all. Every year, we stop to see something new. This year it was Fish Slough.

Located a bit northeast of Bishop about five miles off Highway 395, Fish Slough is home to the highly endangered Owens pupfish. Once plentiful throughout the Owens Valley, these colorful fish spend their short lives feeding on invertebrates. Even though local Paiutes collected large numbers of these 2-inch-long fish for food, the pupfish thrived for millennia.

However, transfer of water from the Owens Valley by the city of Los Angeles starting in the 1920s greatly reduced available habitat for the native pupfish. Introduction of nonnative sport fish for recreational fishing hurt them further.

By 1948, Owens pupfish were thought to be extinct. Then in 1964, an isolated population of 300 was found in one pool in Fish Slough. The area was protected, and the fish survived.

Male Owens pupfish are bright blue in summer, with vertical purple stripes on their sides. Females are a duller brown color. They spawn at the end of their first year and rarely live beyond two years. A female may mate 200 times a day, laying one or two eggs at a time. Mating season can extend from February through August, depending on the location.

Other rare fish also live in this region. Owens tui chub are still found in Fish Slough, but Owens speckled dace and the Owens sucker are found only in other regions of the watershed.

Two books that we recommend for anyone visiting this area are “Sierra East: Edge of the Great Basin,” a natural history guide edited by Genny Smith, and “Geology Underfoot in Death Valley and Owens Valley” by Robert P. Sharp and Allen F. Glazner. These two books, plus a detailed DeLorme map of Northern California, will allow you to explore back roads and places you probably didn’t know existed.

Vic and I weren’t finished with fish even after we returned home. Vic scheduled a nighttime grunion search at Bolsa Chica State Beach with his natural history class for senior citizens.

We scattered along the beach at high tide just after 11 p.m., waiting for the spawning to begin. Many families from the beach camping area joined us. We stood there on the sand staring at the crashing waves for an hour.

By midnight, I was ready to give up. Just as my impatience peaked, the fish arrived. First, a few male scouts flipped up onto the wet sand, then dozens, then hundreds. With each incoming wave, females burrowed tail-first into the sand to lay their eggs. The males curled around them to squirt milt onto the eggs, fertilizing them.

This amazing ritual occurs from April through July and sometimes into August on nights around the new and full moons. People can visit the calendar of events on the Huntington Beach city website to see the best nights to look for grunion spawning.

On this grunion-viewing trip, I was armed with a fishing license with saltwater stamp and a bucket. I really wanted to discover what grunion tasted like. Several children and teens delighted in catching the 7-inch-long fish and putting them into my bucket. As soon as I had enough for a couple of meals, I asked them to stop.

Vic and I stayed up until 2 a.m. processing the grunion. I stripped the eggs from the females by running my fingers down their sides and collecting them in a small bowl. Some people eat grunion without cleaning them, but I’m too squeamish for that. Even though there wasn’t much to their insides, we slit their bellies and removed the internal organs.

For lunch the next day, I floured a pair of grunion for each of us and fried them in bacon grease, accompanied by fresh lemon wedges from our backyard garden.

Although the fish were incredibly bony, the taste was mild and delicious. I also made potato pancakes topped with sour cream and grunion caviar.

The tiny, pale-orange eggs made a beautiful garnish.

Freshly picked and steamed Blue Lake pole beans from my garden completed the meal, which was followed by lemon-blueberry bars made with lemon and blueberries from our garden. We couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful, delicious or locally produced meal. Grunion are a dish that locavores like us can love.

The only downside to our grunion hunt was that we tracked loads of sand from the beach into the house. Vic is still sweeping up. Bless his heart.

VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected] .