The Most Beautiful Flower of All

Hidden in this fairy glade is the naked stalk of a shy beauty just waiting to bloom.

Humboldt Lily, Lilium humboldtii.

This California endemic (also a species of special environmental concern) likes the shaded oak woodlands on the dense north-facing slopes. It blooms from March to May and never fails to take my breath away. I eagerly awaited this particular plant's blooming day, checking the glade every three days until the maroon speckled, golden-orange blossoms burst forth into the light. My heart skipped a beat when I finally saw them in their full glory.

This plant is taller than me!

Even the leaves are soft and smooth and beautiful.

Wildflowers of Santa Cruz Island, Part II

Giant Coreopsis, Coreopsis gigantea, at Valley Anchorage. Dr. Seuss plants!

Up close Coreopsis flower.

Sticky Sand-verbena, Abronia maritima. Coches Beach.

Pink Sand-Verbena, Abronia umbellata. Near Fraser Pt.

White-lined Sphinx Moth, Hyles lineata.

Beach Evening-Primrose, Camissonia cheiranthifolia. Near Fraser Point.

Flowering Crystalline Iceplant, Mesembryanthemum crystallinum, Fraser Point.

 

Crystalline Iceplant sans flowers. An introduced species.

The next plant is very rare--it is only found on the far west end of Santa Cruz Island. No where else in the world! I took this photo on a recent visit to Fraser Point, the furthest west point on the island.

Santa Cruz Island Live-Forever, Dudleya nesiotica, with another SCI endemic (Santa Cruz Island Silver Lotus, Lotus argophyllus) in the background.

And now a few more wildflowers from the valley: 

Dwarf Brodiaea, Brodiaea jolonensis.

A new favorite, Fairy Lantern (or Globe Lily), Calochortus albus.

Yellow Mariposa, Calochortus luteus.

Indian Pink, Silene laciniata.

Creeping Snowberry, Symphoricarpos mollis.

Are You Chewing On My Boot?

Nest searching requires a certain comfort with solitude. In the field, I'll spend hours just sitting and watching my birds without a glimpse of another human. I love it. Sometimes, though, I feel like someone is watching me. I feel that prickle up my spine and the eerie sensation that eyes are boring holes in the back of my head. I whip my head around to find out who is stalking me, and I see this:

Just sitting there, staring at me. No wonder I felt funny. The Santa Cruz Island Fox is an inquisitive little creature with a keen sense of smell and a penchant for marking their territory on just about everything, everywhere. Once you leave your stuff out at night or just too far away from your body in the field, you may be a walking fox-magnet. Once you have the scent of another fox on your daypack or your boots, foxes in other territories will gallop towards you, raise their pointy nose in the air and sniff with their little eyes squinted shut. They will pace back and forth a bit and, if they are bold, will approach you cautiously to get a better whiff.

The other day I had a fox jogging after me for over 200 meters as I walked up towards my territories in Coches. Knowing the dangers of this fox following me to a nest, I decided to sit down and wait until he decided that I wasn't quite as good smelling as he thought. I sat with my legs splayed out in front of me and he (or she) didn't hesitate for a second and ran right up to my feet. He paced a few times in front of my toes, sniffing. Then he proceeded to nibble on the bottom of my boot. Then the top. Then he took a taste of my gaiter stirrup. I let him work his way up my gaiter--he would bite the thick fabric or the velcro not to eat it but to pull at it as if he just wanted to run away with it. He made it all the way up to my knee strap until I decided to shoo him away when he pulled hard enough on the strap to undo the buckle that tightens the top of the gaiter below my knee. He scampered a few feet away, sat down, and stared at me. I'm not done chewing on your gaiters, he might have been thinking. I got up and walked away, hoping that he wouldn't follow me again. He did. It took me quite some time to shake him off and by the time I did, I was followed by two foxes. I sat down, and the whole experience repeated itself. I wish I had had my camera.

I would let this little guy chew on my boot any day.

Here is a video of a fox trying to steal my telemetry gear. I try not to talk to animals the way I do in this video because I respect them as fellow creatures, not cute stuffed animals, but it is really hard not to talk to foxes in a British accent. It just is.

Wildflowers of Santa Cruz Island, Part I

This season I have been particularly interested in identifying wildflowers. I feel like I hardly noticed them two years ago because I was so focused on the Jays--not that I am not as focused on them this year, but I started with a familiarity that I didn't have before, so I can take the extra moment to sit with a Shooting Star or photograph a Larkspur or take a deep breath in a field of Blue Dicks.

Upon returning to the cabins after a day of fieldwork, I often find myself reaching for A Flora of Santa Cruz Island, an intense but incredibly helpful guide to every single tree, flower, grass, and thistle on the island. The text is like trying to read another language (botany has an incredibly unique vocabulary), but the line drawings are simple and beautiful, so I use what knowledge I have of plant families to get me to the right section of the book and then I skim the pages for familiar petals or fruits.

Here are a few photos of what I have found so far.

Shooting Star, Dodecatheon clevelandii subsp. insulare.

Larkspur, Delphinium parryi subsp. maritimum.

 

Larkspur, fully flowering.

Blue Dicks, Dichelostemma capitatum.

In the first month of the field season, the open grassland vistas were glazed with purple Blue Dicks.

Johnny-Jump-Up, Viola pedunculata. This edible flower reminds me of my Grandmother, Kathy.

Wood Mint (or Hedge Nettle), Stachys bullata. The leaves make a delicious tea.

Fremont's Death Camas or Common Star-lily, Zigadenus fremontii. This plant is poisonous to humans and livestock!

One of my favorites: Goldenstar, Bloomeria crocea.

Such a vibrant back stripe on every petal!

Bush Monkey Flower, Mimulus longiflorus.

 

Island Monkey Flower, Mimulus flemingii, possibly a hybrid with M. longiflorus.

Catalina Mariposa Lily, Calochortus catalinae.

Climbing Penstemon, Keckiella cordifolia.

Stay tuned for beach/cliff flowers!

Telemetry

I wield the Yagi antenna like a fencer's foil, straight out in front, hopes high for a good signal, a blip of information that will dictate my next move. It beeps and I charge forward in the direction of the strongest signal. I am on top of a ridge above Portezuela (PZ) and the signal is pointing me down into a steep drainage filled with dense manzanita--a radio tracker's worst nightmare. Luckily, the signal is strong enough that I know the bird has to be close enough to me that I might not have to bushwack through too much stiff manzanita branches or scratchy chamise. I am looking for YGY/AP, a one-year old bird with a tiny radio transmitter backpack, a sneaky bird who we have not seen for nine days because he traverses the ridges and disappears to who-knows-where. I know that he is close because I can hear a bird pecking at bark on a branch. I drop to my hands and knees, unplug the antenna from the receiver so I don't rip it out (they are much too fragile for the vegetation we plow through every day), and crawl under a dried out manzanita trunk, crunchy leaf duff filling my boots and chamise brushing my hat back on my head, scratching my face. Through the tangle of the smooth, maroon, peely manzanita branches, I can see a pair of jay feet and the flash of yellow and green. That's my bird! I get a little closer to make sure it is, in fact, YGY/AP and start my timer. I watch him forage in the duff for five minutes, take a GPS point, and clamor out of the drainage back up to the road on the ridge. One bird down, eight to go, times two. It is the beginning of an epic day in the field.

Transmitter/antenna.

Last fall, twenty hatch year (HY) birds (born spring 2012) were trapped, banded, and fitted with dime-sized transmitters that have a six-inch long antenna sticking out. Our job this spring is to find these birds every day until we have at least 30 separate GPS points on each one. This data will help the "bosses" determine where young birds go
when they disperse from their birth territory. All hatch year birds (after January 1st they are called Second Years, SY) have to travel away from their natal territories to be able to establish their own territories in suitable habitat. SY birds don't always find a mate and establish a territory right away, so this data will help us have a better idea of where these birds are spending their time in that first year and in what habitat. We record who the bird is interacting with and in what way (pair behavior like joint perching and bobbing, territorial behavior like aggressiveness, and foraging behavior within a certain radius) for five minutes of when we first detect them.

This winter was particularly harsh on the jays so only nine of the twenty transmitter birds remain.  Six birds died--we found their transmitters near a scatter of ratty blue feathers. One bird disappeared completely--we never found a signal. Five birds dropped their transmitters--we found their transmitters dangling in thick brush or on the ground with broken straps. Luckily, one of these birds seems to have established a territory at the top of the Red Neck Bowl in PZ and we find him almost every day we track. He is exhibiting paired behavior with another one of our transmitter birds, which is pretty exciting.

Back to the big day. I wanted to get every bird twice, and YGY/AP three times, which meant I needed to be in the field for at least six hours because we have to wait at least three hours in between GPS points. I started high on the ridge and got points on YGY/AP and UGW/AP, then hiked down the steep crumbly old road to pick up the birds in the valley below. I found WYB/AP and OYB/AP on foraging on top of a small oak-covered ridge. I found OUK/AP foraging low in the oaks where she always is in No Man's Land. This time, though, the oaks were dripping with the liquid lemony song of Nashville Warblers so I stopped for ten minutes to soak that up and get a glimpse of the sneaky migrants hiding in the tippy-top of scrub oak leaves. Then I hauled up to the top of the Red Neck Bowl to look for RYP/AP and her man WBO/AP. I'm not sure why exactly, but I have a fondness for RYP/AP. There are just some birds that you look at and they are more than just a bird. They make your heart feel mushy. She is like a small child that I get to watch grow up and hopefully flourish in this insane world. I feel proud of her when she catches a moth out of mid-air. Weird, right? She was foraging by herself and WBO/AP was nowhere to be found. He is the bird that dropped his transmitter, so we get points on him by luck only (but we have more points on him that a few other birds who are just really, really hard to find sometimes).

At this point, I had points on all the "easy" valley birds and had almost two hours to go until I could get another GPS point on YGY/AP, so I went after BGB/AP--the ghost bird. He disappears up a deep canyon most days but sometimes he shows up randomly right in front of your face when you aren't even looking for him. The first week of tracking, we spent hours each day getting frustrated by his ghostliness. Then one day I was walking down from tracking in the Red Neck Bowl and I heard the jingling of bands scuffling around in the dead leaves below a scrub oak. I snuck into the foliage to get a better look and there was BGB/AP, the first time we saw him all season! I found him without even using a receiver!! I could barely contain my excitement. Today I hiked to the top of a high ridge and pointed my antenna in the direction of his Bermuda Triangle drainage. Nothing. No signal. I wandered further and tried again. Nothing. No signal...until all of a sudden I saw a bird rise above a distant ridge and the signal went from nothing to a loud blip. I ran. No joke, I booked it through a grassy field and then up and down a rocky ridge along an old sheep fence. I ran--equipment jostling around me, tripping over my own toes--for almost 1/3 of a mile without stopping because I wanted this bird bad. After all that, the bird I saw rise above the ridge wasn't him and I spent the better part of an hour trying to locate him, but I never did.

BGB/AP on one of the days I did get him. Note the antenna sticking out near his tail.

I had to get back up to the top of the ridge to find YGY/AP again, so I raced back up there and then back down again to get the valley birds in round two for the day. Luckily, they were all in similar places so it only took an hour or so to get them all. WBO/AP was back in his territory foraging with RYP/AP. The only bird that gave me trouble was OYB/AP, who lead me on a steep chase down a grassy hillside dense with low scrub oaks, so I was sliding on my butt and breaking branches with my face trying to follow her. Then her signal disappeared. I gave up on her until later and then found her foraging alone exactly where I had started to track her over an hour earlier. Tracking something with wings is really interesting because they can just take off whenever they feel like it and there is nothing you can do about it.

After I got all the valley birds a second time, I hiked back up to the top of the ridge to get YGY/AP a third time and got back to the truck at 2:30pm. Due to a combination of the heat (easily in the 80s with little breeze), the duration (almost 8 hours of straight hiking), the distance, and the topography, I decided it was the most strenuous day of field work I have ever done. The best part was that I could have stopped after getting one point on each bird and headed home feeling accomplished, but I was so naturally jacked up on dopamine that I felt like I was on top of the world, invincible. Tracking is like an exciting treasure hunt, except your "treasure" is mobile. It is so thrilling to finally find the bird you are looking for. I just didn't want to stop! It did feel pretty amazing, though, when I drove home and jumped in an ice cold shower. It was a beautiful afternoon, so the four of us on the crew hung out on the porch sipping Bourbon as the sun dipped below the ridge where I had started my morning. Ish'p'oy.

On top of the ridge with my antenna.

Visitors from the North

Living on an isolated island has its social quirks--here you are either spending almost every hour of every day with the same three people, or meeting new folks who only stick around for a day or two, or you are on top of a ridge alone and you know there is not another human in miles. I like it like this. When familiar faces come visit for a few hours or days, it is a beautiful mix of the excitement of sharing this place with them and the relaxed comfort of being in the company of cherished family and treasured friends. My aunt, uncle, and cousin came out for a day trip to visit on the same boat that my friend Lara came out to stay the night. It was fantastic to see them all. Marshall, Jennifer, and Nathaniel got to see a part of my life that many of my family members only get to hear about through the email grapevine and I am very happy they did.

From Inverness to Santa Cruz Island, family on the porch! Nathaniel, Me, Jennifer, and Marshall.

We had lunch at the Cabins, walked through the Field Station plot and then wandered the beach at Prisoner's looking for heart shaped rocks. They got to experience the full "Jurassic Park"-like experience of driving in the Miner, our field Land Cruiser, from the coast to the central valley and back through the only slightly flowing creekbed and past Giant Coreopsis, juicy poison oak, and the island oaks, ceanothus, and lemonadeberry. They met Tony Blair, Hillary Clinton, and Bart Stupak, as well as Castro and Dalia, who were all bickering in the Cabin Oak tree.

Feeding Hillary Clinton a peanut.

After we dropped them off at the harbor, Lara and I headed back to the Cabins to continue the adventures. We wandered above the valley on Islay Canyon, where Lara saw her first Island Fox in the Manzanita. Later we made stir-fry, played Eucre with my crew, played guitar and sang on the heli-pad, and watched the stars. The next day we adventured some more before I drove her to the boat. So wonderful to have such a great friend come out to play!

Love this human.

Jumping over the Red-White Divide

See this old post from 2011 to learn about Island Geology and the Red-White Divide.

See the fox ears? He was following us.

This cutie sat 15 meters from us and even crept closer to inspect us.

Giant Grasshopper!

Coches Beach.

Driving the Kiwi ProHunt truck. It is very weird to drive on the right side (wrong side?) of the car.

Thanks for coming to visit!