Everywhere you look these days, birds are flying by with building materials in their beaks, sticks and twigs, grass and string, cast-off Starbucks drink cards. They've been off making mad hot avian love and now, sated and tired, they're in the nesting phase.

In the Cross Creek ghost town Shopping Center, high in a sturdy tree that grows in the parking lot, the egrets are back. Stare straight up and you can see some white feathers, glimpse the nest looking like a bundle of kindling. Soon, the eggs will hatch and small, goofy-looking birds will clamber around the tree, gulping down fish guts, testing their wings.

This annual visit has its drawbacks, but mostly it's magnificent. Beautiful white birds, breeding in plain sight. I love Malibu.