Tidbits of This Life I Live

I could banter on and on about what it is like to live on this incredible island, but instead I will show you a few things that I have experienced in the last few weeks.

Moonset over Sierra Blanca. It was T-shirt weather at 5:30am on the top of this ridge.

It was coupled with this sunrise.

And also this purple glow, looking north at Picacho Diablo as the sun peeked over the ocean.

Can't hardly tell in this photo, but my face is covered in dirt, as it is every day that I radiotrack. We usually come back from the field absolutely filthy, faces streaked with dirt mixed with sweat and sunscreen, hair filled with twigs and leaves, pockets overflowing with bits of sticks and duff. This photo also shows that I have been bad about putting sunscreen--sun bitten?

This Island Fox was napping in my "driveway/parking spot" at the cabins.

This is what I was for Halloween, minus my sweet La Catrina hat. Who knew that this was the 100th anniversary of the death of the artist who made La Catrina famous as the woman who represented parts of Dia De Los Muertos. Halloween on Santa Cruz Island was the best I've had in years---we had dinner, a real treasure hunt, and some riveting games of capture the flag and sardines in the dark night around the Main Ranch, which has a lot of history of it's own that makes you think about the dark things that might have happened once upon a time...

My Dia de los Muertos altar with food (I left a tamale, but I ate it before I took the picture), drink, and special gifts for my loved ones who have died.

We've been snorkeling a lot. I wish I had an underwater camera!! Harbor Seals, Bat Rays, nudibranchs, and some crazy fish!

I get to watch these amazing birds all day long!

Impossible not to love them.

The Mordor-like sunrise on our Picacho Diablo adventure with the Ant Crew. We all got up super early and piled into the Land Cruiser and drove to the highest peak on the island (20 minute hike from the parking spot). It was warm and windy and fantastic.

Happy? I think so!

Looking towards the mainland as the light changed.

The view from the top, looking East, towards the National Park Service side of the island. We were the only people for miles and it felt great!

Jay Crew + Ant Crew = Good times!

Fancy dinner on the island! Jenn's boyfriend gave us some Northern Pintail that he shot earlier in the month, so Sam (our culinary genius) cooked them up in butter and salt, and we ate them with a balsamic reduction sauce, garlic mashed potatoes and green beans. Wine on the side made it a fine meal indeed.

More to come soon! More about the Jays, I promise. I feel like I am really living in the moment while I am here, which makes in hard to sit down at a computer screen and write about it all to share it. Photos will have to do for now.

Switching Islands and a Bio-Blitz

I write today from a different island off the California coast: Santa Cruz Island once again!
It feels fantastic (like always) to be here. More on that (and the in between time) in a bit.

Reverse Sunrise on Picacho Diablo.

On October 8, I started a week-long fundraiser for Point Blue Conservation Science. Usually it is a Bird-a-thon (trying to see as many species of birds as you can in 24 hours), but since I am on an island with limited diversity, I decided to do it like the Farallonathon on Southeast Farallon Island. This means I will spend 7 days looking for any animal, fish, or insect life on the island and will give myself a number of points for special species like Channel Island endemics or vagrants. Folks can choose to donate a certain number of cents per point or donate a flat rate. I have raised $100 so far, exactly 1/3 of my goal.

The first day of my "Cruzathon" was also my first day of work on the island, so I was casually birding and keeping an eye out for insects while I toured our new crew members around Portezuela and taught them how to resight Island Scrub-jay colorbands.

I ticked off the island residents: Obviously, the Island Scrub-jay was first on the list. I gave myself 5 points for this bird because it is an endemic species to Santa Cruz Island. I gave myself 2 points per island endemic subspecies, of which I saw: Song Sparrow, Rufous-crowned Sparrow, Bewick's Wren, Pacific-slope Flycatcher, and Orange-crowned Warbler. That is 10 points. I gave myself 1 point per "regular" bird species: Spotted Towhee, Fox Sparrow, Golden-crowned Sparrow, Anna's Hummingbird, Black Phoebe, Acorn Woodpecker, Hutton's Vireo, Bushtit, House Finch, Common Raven, Black-headed Grosbeak, Northern Flicker, Vaux's Swift, American Kestrel, Cooper's Hawk, Bald Eagle, Mourning Dove, and White-crowned Sparrow. At a trip to Valley Anchorage I added Brown Pelican, Brandt's Cormorant, Pelagic Cormorant, Double-crested Cormorant, Say's Phoebe, Elegant Tern, Western Gull, Parasitic Jaeger, and (on the drive back) Common Poorwill for a total of 27 points.

Vaux's Swifts were around for only two days.

Island Fox napping in our "driveway".

 As for Mammals, Fish, and Insects, I saw a smattering of Island Foxes (endemic species: 5 points), a California Sea Lion (1 point), an Opaleye (fish, 1 point), an unidentified Sculpin (1 point pending on ID), and a California Sister (butterfly, 1 point).

I finished the day with 50 points (with another point pending for the Sculpin).

Unidentified Sculpin. Help me!

Day 2 was rainy on and off. We did fieldwork during light sprinkling and then data back at the cabins, but it wasn't a very active day of searching for Cruzathon points. I added Side-blotch Lizard (1 point), Oregon Junco (1 point), and Peregrine Falcon (1 point). Point total: 53.

Side-blotched Lizard, staged on a rock by my herp-savvy coworker Jenn.

On Day 3 we banded birds in Coches Prietos Canyon with a full crew. Right off the bat, as the sun just began to crest the hills, we saw a Bronzed Cowbird, which was a lifer for all but the Big Boss. That day I also picked up Hermit Thrush, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Brewer's Blackbird, California Quail, Lesser Goldfinch, Western Wood-pewee, Audubon's Warbler, Red-tailed Hawk, Cedar Waxwing, and Northern Mockingbird. I got great looks at an Acmon Blue butterfly in the dry creekbed down by the field station. That night we had a barbeque with some island folk and we heard a Northern Saw-whet Owl hooting, and saw a couple of California Myotis Bats flitting around at dusk. Point total: 67.

Day 4 consisted of a trip to the Christy Ranch via Sierra Blanca, where we were scouting the pure Bishop Pine stands for Jays. I found a Black-bellied Slender Salamander in the moist pine duff and as we sat around at the top lamenting the lack of Scrub-jays, a Lesser Nighthawk circled us for almost 10 minutes! Earlier in the day I found a cold Alligator Lizard under a board, and a Jerusalem Cricket (Potato Bug) in some oak duff. I also saw Western Meadowlark, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Sharp-shinned Hawk, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Allen's Hummingbird (2 points for an island endemic subspecies), Eurasian Collared-dove, Canada Goose, Townsend's Warbler, and, once at the beach, Surf Scoter. I saw a Pallid Bat flying around in the evening at Christy Ranch. Point Total: 82

Day 5 turned into a crew exploration of Fraser Point (the far West End of the island). We saw Horned Lark (2 points for an island endemic subspecies), Black-bellied Plover, California Gull, Snowy Plover,  Savannah Sparrow, Black Oystercatcher, Wandering Tattler, and two Horned Grebes. A Harbor Seal watched us do some tidepooling. We saw Black Abalone, many Purple Sea Urchins, Giant Green Anemone, a Bat Star, and Ochre Sea Stars. Point Total: 97

Black-bellied Plover.

Snowy Plover! There were two.

Water Lorax? No, Harbor Seal!

Purple Sea Urchins in the tidepools.

Itty-bitty Bat Star!

Ochre Sea Stars.

On Day 6, I ventured to the green scummy remnants of Cascada, which on a wet year is an AWESOME swimming hole. This was very fruitful for Odes: I saw a Flame Skimmer, two Blue-eyed Darners, and a handful of Familiar Bluets. Later that day I saw a Clay-colored Sparrow in the brush near the dry creek, and my coworker Sam and I watched two Merlins chasing Kestrels. Point Total: 102

On the last day of my Cruzathon, Day 7, I finished up by finding and capturing (with a herp noose made from a crappie pole) a Channel Islands Fence Lizard (2 points for an island subspecies) and hung out with a migrating Wilson's Warbler in a patch of willows. This brought my total Cruzathon points to 105, which coincidentally is the exact "score" I got on last year's Birdathon in Marin.

The Channel Islands Fence Lizard. See how her tail is a different color? She dropped it and regrew it!

Fence Lizards are also called "bluebellies" casually.

Thanks to everyone who donated to my Cruzathon! It was a very fun way to start my third field season on Santa Cruz Island. I really do love it out here; it's an incredible place.

IMPORTANT EDIT: I actually got 107 points! I forgot Chorus Frog, both in tadpole and adult form on Day 3 on the way to (and at) Christy Ranch, and American Robin, seen in the Eucalyptus grove by the UC Reserve Field Station while wandering the plot with Sam on Day 6!

Birds From The Last Few Days

My days were winding down on SEFI and the hopes of grandeur dwindled---less days left meant less chances of some crazy mega-vagrant flitting into the Rixford Tree or scrounging for micro-bugs at the lighthouse. The days went by and very few birds showed up. I was happy with the birds that did and ecstatic for the one special seabird that showed up, so it wasn't too bad bird-wise at the end of the season.

One of my favorite birds from the Eastern Sierra (they are all over, but I grew to love them there), the Warbling Vireo.

The Vireo takes off.

A rare island migrant, a Green-tailed Towhee. This bird stayed for at least a week.

A Western Flycatcher noms a beetle in the Coast Guard Tree.

Same bird, extra curious.

One of the few dozen Black Turnstones.

A terrible photo of a Blue Grosbeak through a window with a screen on it. If it hadn't been for the window it could have been a delicious crush.

On the Thursday before I left, the seabird we'd all been waiting for finally showed up on the island. There had been reports of Blue-footed Boobies up and down the California coast (and inland, the first sighting was in August at Mono Lake, and there are at least a dozen BFBOs seen at the Salton Sea) and we knew one had to show up on the island at some point. No one had ever seen a Blue-footed Booby on the Farallones before, so it was an exciting thing to anticipate. We all had Booby fever, constantly scanning every rock perch and feeding flock for this sub-tropical Sulid. After days and days of tiring anticipation, one arrived in the late afternoon, perched on Saddle Rock and preened for 30 minutes. We all rushed out with scopes and cameras and watched the first island record Blue-footed Booby preen amongst the Cormorants. It was too far for great photos, but here is one I got from far away, and one I "tried" to digiscope...looks more like an abstract painting.

Extra-SEFI Adventures

Southeast Farallon Island is the only inhabited island in a small archipelago of granite rocks thrust out of the sea just east of where the sea floor drops from 300ft deep to almost two miles deep. Most Farallon researchers spend all of their time on SEFI, but I was lucky enough to be invited along on two trips off of SEFI and onto (or near) some of the other Farallon Islands.

The first trip was a boat journey to North Farallones to survey roosting Brandt's and Pelagic Cormorants, as well as pinnipeds. The sea was almost glassy and the pewter sky reflected off the ocean to create a surreal feel to the whole day. Were we boating through the sky or the sea?

North Farallon Islands, glassy sea.

It took about an hour to get there in the SAFE boat (the one we use to schlep gear back and forth from our supply boats to the island). The "islands" are small and jutting steeply out of the water so there is no landing spot--we circled each islet to get a count of the birds and pinnipeds, and took photographs of this bizarre collection of oceanic monoliths. We found a pair of Peregrine Falcons roosting above the cormorants on one islet, perhaps biding their time between meals.

Pinnipeds checking us out while we checked them out.

On our way back to SEFI, we swung by Middle Farallon--which is called "the Pimple" by some--a single rock in the crashing swell (well, not that day...it was more a gentle licking).

Middle Farallon, looking back towards SEFI.

The second extra-SEFI adventure was a trip across the Jordan Channel to West End, also called Maintop Island, to count Northern Fur Seals, California Sea Lions, and Steller's Sea Lions. Four of us suited up in full body harnesses and clipped into the 20 foot zipline to pull ourselves (one-by-one, of course) across the channel while California Sea Lions surfed the waves in the waters 15 feet below.

Jonathan and Nyssa (USFWS) strap into the full body harnesses.

The Jordan Channel zipline.

This is me, halfway across the channel on the line.

Then we hiked into the center of the island to a perch above a flat terrace where all the Fur Seals hang out. It sounded like a goat ranch. Baby Fur Seals bleat like little baby goats. They also sit in the most adorable positions and use their incredibly long hind flippers to scratch their chins and swat away the flies.

Young Northern Fur Seal hangout.

Adorbz.

Just look at those long flippers!

After we finished the count, we climbed to the top of Maintop--a 220 foot scramble up the granite dome--and relished in the breeze. The fog prevented us from enjoying the view back towards our little home island (you couldn't see it AT ALL), but it still felt amazing to be on top of the second highest rock in the archipelago.

Almost too foggy to see Saddle Rock, definitely too foggy to see Lighthouse Hill!

This view is (obviously) not from the top of Maintop because my camera ran out of batteries before we climbed it.

These adventures were a great little getaway from the monotony of foggy, virtually birdless surveys during a week straight of socked-in fog and few migrants.

There Are So Many Flies

To get an idea about the conditions in which I have been conducting field work in the last few weeks, read this post on the Farallones blog. It will terrify you. There is even a video. You might feel sick. Not really (unless you have pteronarcophobia, a phobia of flies), so please read this blog post. We worked really hard on it. The flies have become an obsession over the last few days because it has been so birdless. WE'RE GOING FLY CRAZY!

Trying to out-zen the flies. Not an easy task.