New Arrivals

It is spring, and spring sure is springing! Though the weather here has felt like summer since February, this launch into spring feels fresh. The jays are raising nestlings, the island is swimming with new (and returning) biologists, and there is one very important new arrival, not here on the island, but into my life. She is everywhere; I am constantly reminded of her fresh spring presence in my life: my new niece Lupine. My awesome strong sister gave birth to Lupine Anacleta Vallejos on March 18th at 4:57am and I somehow made it off the island in time to meet her at 10pm on her day of birth. It was an adventure I'll tell for ages, though the most exciting part was holding her for the first time and seeing my sister and her partner Richard and just knowing how great they will be as parents.

Molly with the sweetest nugget I have ever met.

I just held her and stared into her face as she slept for hours.

And now for some Jay Babies:

Hubble's alien babies, who are now so massive they practically look like adults cramming into the nest, fully feathered but with short tails.

Ravens have eaten many of our nests in Coches and Portezuela (they wait until they hatch and are fat and juicy) but they have surprisingly not gotten to Hubble. We have a camera pointed at the nest 24/7, hoping to catch a predation event, but this nest has made it (a huge success, seeing as the nest is horrendously exposed, low, and obvious, as most of Hubble's nests in the past have been)! Next time we go to Coches (on Sunday) the nestlings will either be eaten or successfully fledged, so we'll probably get to watch an exciting video either way!

We don't band nestlings anymore, but back in 2011 I took this photo of how weird these baby birds are! They grow up to be such studs.

All those funny pin feathers...

I'm glad human babies are cute from the get-go, and I can't wait to watch Lupine grow into a little person. Until I finish up the season out here on Santa Cruz Island, I'll have to get my baby fix by watching the nestlings on our plots grow up and into healthy, goofy little Brownheads.

Fields of Blue Dicks

The season is zipping by! The jays were already building nests when we arrived in early February and apparently they were only starting to build at this time last year (a more serious drought year). We have around 10 nests with nestlings already. WOW! More on that soon.

We've upped our crew personnel number from three to four, adding my good friend Oliver to the mix. Before Ollie came out, Michael, Kachina, and I drove all the way out to the West End/Fraser Point to check out the fields of Blue Dicks, Dichelostemma capitatum. A few rains this winter (not as many as we need, but enough for wildflowers) facilitated the flowers starting a month early. As the season progresses, we've seen new flowers pop up, the majority of which I didn't even see when I worked out here in 2013.

In Chumash lore, Coyote asked some children who were digging for Blue Dicks bulbs to eat to share with him. The generous children agreed to share their bounty with him so he bewitched the flowers to be plentiful and easy to dig up, but for the stingy kids he bewitched them to be deep and tough to find. Then when they cooked them in the coals of their fire, he bewitched them again so the generous kids had perfectly cooked bulbs and the stingy kids' were burned (Chumash Enthobotany by Jan Timbrook).

3/4ths of the Jay Crew (L to R): Me, Kachina, and Michael, lounging in the field.

Ecstatic for Blue Dicks beauty!

We returned to the fields for sunset, when the western sky blazed with sunbeams and the eastern sky cooled into periwinkle and lavender blue. We were silent watchers, the wind made the flowers dance along with our hearts.