Stephen Hessong, who for the past 11 years spent his days among the birds and fish at Lake Balboa and was known among the park regulars as the “Birdman of Lake Balboa,” died Monday. He was 68.

Hessong was remembered by his family and friends as a gentle soul who cared for animals and others around him above himself.

Hessong was born in Burbank. He was a boy scout, which helped him overcome his natural shyness, his family said. As a teenager, he enjoyed surfing with his younger brother Jeff and he took up surfing again when he was 50.

He graduated from Herbert Hoover High School in Glendale and was drafted into the Army at age 19. He served one year in Vietnam.

When he got out of the service, he worked at Redco Cement Company, where his grandfather worked and in 1994, he was hired as a courier at Sony Pictures, where he worked until 2005 when an injury forced him to retire.

Hessong began going to Lake Balboa 11 years ago because a woman he met liked to walk her dog around the 27-acre lake.

Things didn’t work out with the woman, but Hessong kept going to the park.

He decided it was too far to keep walking around the lake so he decided he would fish.

He went every day, except Sundays.

“His joy of life was going out there,” his mother June Hessong said in an interview.

He would wake up every morning around 5 a.m. and he would feed the cats and get into the car and arrive at the lake around 6 a.m. He would sit in the same spot where he would feed the birds and set up his fishing pole, always returning his catch back to the water. The geese would even sit on his lap. He would walk around and help any of the animals that were tangled up in fishing lines that were left behind or trash.

The ducks that Stephen Hessong came to recognize were given names. Two geese that were special to him were called Thelma and Louise.

“He loved the Lord and he loved everything the Lord put on this earth of us to enjoy,” June Hessong said.

Stephen Hessong was a member of Montrose Community Church.

June Hessong said some mornings before her son went to the lake, he would pick up a homeless man, who called Stephen Hessong his brother, and bring him to 7-11 to buy breakfast.

“That was my son,” June Hessong said. “He was a giver. He wasn’t a taker.”

Daily News Columnist Dennis McCarthy spent a morning at the lake with Stephen Hessong in 2009 and wrote a column about Stephen Hessong’s daily routine.

“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,” McCarthy wrote.

June Hessong said her son spent his money on gas to get from his home in La Crescenta to Lake Balboa and on the expensive bird feed he purchased for the birds.

Linda Gibboney, who met Stephen Hessong at Lake Balboa where she walks her dogs, said she was initially opposed to the idea of developing a lake in the cornfields when it was proposed by the city, but she came to appreciate all of the benefits the lake brought.

“Yes, the lake is a sanctuary and, especially, one for the human heart, too, because the most magnificent and treasured gift of all is you, dear Steve, you,” Gibboney wrote in a letter to Stephen Hessong that she read at his memorial service Thursday that she shared with this news organization.

Stephen Hessong, who wore brightly-colored floral shirts, befriended many people over the years at the lake. He became a sort of expert on the ducks, geese and other birds who made the lake their home.

“You have welcomed everyone to your special place at lake side where Catch and Release beckons all who want to experience the wisdom, humanity, and friendship of Fisherman Steve, the Birdman of Lake Balboa,” Gibboney wrote.