This is a preliminary report concerning the responses of wildlife to a chaparral fire in Ventura County, California, which occurred between Camarillo and Newbury Park on 28 October 1980, sweeping over 8,400 acres of mountains and valleys. A hundred acre area including Camarillo Oak Grove County Park had been under intensive study for four years at the time of the fire which destroyed all cover except 25 acres of the park itself. Over a hundred species of birds made use of this environment during the year with an average daily tally of about 25 species and some 200 individuals. Mist nets were extended once each week and captured birds were banded, weighed, measured and examined for fat, evidence of disease and for external parasites. In the three months since this fire evidence of some of the ecological changes affecting the birds have been: A decrease to near total absence of birds in the burned area; crowding in the unburned park proper resulting in competition for food and cover; movement of towhees out from the park foraging for food in the ashes of the chaparral; apparently fairly good survival among the towhees and some other species with almost a total loss or emigration of Wrentits; California Quail concentrated at the park and then dispersed using burned cacti as over-night shelters; an increase in predation of the concentrated and expose birds. There was also a rapid decrease in feather mite infestations among surviving birds. Within the park itself the effects of the fire upon winter residents were less evident since they arrived after the fire and took up their normal winter territories. Those that over-wintered outside of the park had to move on. This brief study indicates that each animal species tries to cope with its altered habitat in its own way. It suggests that any use of fire to control chaparral environments must be done with utmost care and understanding of the ecosystem elements involved.
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