AUDIO SLIDE SHOW

The Birdman of Lake Balboa pulls his car into his favorite spot alongside the lake and waits. It's 6a.m., just getting light outside.

In a couple of hours hundreds of joggers, dog walkers and friends out for a leisurely stroll will be taking the 1.3 mile walk around the scenic lake.

But right now, as another day slowly comes alive, the park belongs to the birdman, Steve Hessong - also known around these parts as the Goose Whisperer.

One by one, his pals come out from behind bushes, under park benches, behind reeds, and wherever else they've chosen to spend the night.

There's Thelma, who used to go with Louise. Here comes Stumpie, followed by Huey, Louie and Dewey. Greasy's not far behind.

"Good morning," the birdman says.

"Quack," say his friends, which is duck for "Where's breakfast?"

The birdman smiles and grabs the 10-pound container of chicken scratch and other assorted delicacies he purchased at Red Barn and puts them into big plastic trays.

"Quack, Quack," Stumpie squeals - which is goose for "dig in."

And they do, by the hundreds. Coots, mallards, wood ducks, Peking ducks, fresh water pelicans, great blue heron, greater and lesser egrets, osprey fish eagles, Chinese, African and Canada geese, all stopping by for breakfast.

The birdman sits back, casts out his fishing line and watches his buddies peck away at the $125 a month breakfast tab he's been picking up for them the last couple of years.

"You know," the birdman says to Thelma, his favorite. "Life doesn't get much better than this."

No, it doesn't, the goose quacks back.

For nearly 25 years, Hessong worked at Sony Pictures as a courier before a vertebrae injury forced him to retire.

He did what most retired guys do initially. He sat around, ate and drank too much, and used the TV clicker as his main source of exercise.

Then, he met a woman. Ah, don't they always. She got him in shape.

"We took walks around the lake every day and I lost 19 pounds in two months," the birdman says.

The woman wound up leaving, but the lake stayed. Hessong got a fishing license, threw his line out at sunrise every morning, and began making new friends.

Thelma and Louise were the first to stop by. The two geese were a true love story that turned tragic.

"I had to visit some family up north for a few weeks last year, and when I got back I only saw Thelma, no Louise.

"I found out she'd been hit by a car and killed. You could tell Thelma was really sad. She'd call to Louise every day but she never came.

"Thelma started crawling into my lap. We'd be beak to nose. People would walk by and say, `Look, it's the Goose Whisperer.' It caught on."

After breakfast, the two of them - the birdman and Thelma - would make the rounds to see who needed their help. Often people with no sense of responsibility would leave behind fish line attached to whatever they were using as a makeshift pole. Often a beer can.

The ducks and geese would get their legs all tangled up in the line.

"That's how Stumpie got her name," Hessong said. "The fish line got pulled tight around her leg and cut off circulation. She lost a foot."

Barry the goose met an even worse fate. Three guys in a car spread out bread crumbs one day. As soon as Barry got close enough they grabbed him, stuck him in the trunk and took off.

"When people are hungry, well, you never know," Hessong says.

Ben Holder, a retired Los Angeles Fire Department firefighter, stops to say hi to the birdman, and ask how Thelma's doing.

"Great," he says. "She finally met someone. Sam. They're partners now."

As the Birdman of Lake Balboa gathers up his food trays, the squawks across the lake grow louder.

"They know when I'm leaving," he says. "I like to think they're saying goodbye."

"That's it for today," the birdman yells out. "See you tomorrow."