Blue and white balloons bobbed above the face of Norman
Watenpaugh, his eyes forever focused, intent on one of the hundreds
of birdhouses he tended. His family gazed at the poster stationed
on the Uvas Levee, a tribute to Watenpaugh and the birds he fought
to save.
Gilroy – Blue and white balloons bobbed above the face of Norman Watenpaugh, his eyes forever focused, intent on one of the hundreds of birdhouses he tended. His family gazed at the poster stationed on the Uvas Levee, a tribute to Watenpaugh and the birds he fought to save. Nine months after his death, killed crossing the street, Watenpaugh can’t return their gaze.
“It means a lot to be here,” said Lucinda Bettencourt, a friend of the Watenpaugh family. Tears welled behind her sunglasses. “He used to take my kids on walks, and show them the barn owls he helped preserve. They were fascinated by seeing the eggs, watching them hatch.”
She broke off, overcome.
In October, a truck struck Watenpaugh as he returned from one of his nightly walks, ending his 74 years of protecting and preserving wildlife.
But his work lives on, embodied in this educational signpost on the Uvas Levee, near Wren Avenue.
When the Watenpaughs approached the city of Gilroy to ask for a tribute to the man they lost in October, they thought a bench or a plaque might suffice.
Parks and Recreation supervisor Chris Orr offered another idea: Honor the “Bird Man of Gilroy” by spreading his love of birds.
“The people get something. The family gets something. And the city gets something,” Orr said, after the Watenpaughs unveiled the sign Friday afternoon on the levee.
Photos of tanagers and bluebirds spangle the poster, the work of graphic designer Sabrina Johnson.
The Audubon Society selected highly visible birds, ones you don’t need binoculars to see, said member Bob Powers. Audubon board member Ashok Khosla gathered the photos, dividing them into categories.
“They’re birds you’d stumble across on the trail,” said Power.
Norma Watenpaugh, Norman’s daughter, recalled walking with her father, who named the birds as they alighted on the trees.
Now, she walks alone, and notices birds she can’t identify.
“And I think, I wish I could ask Dad what that was,” she said. “This is the kind of memorial that my dad would be very proud of.”
