Picture this: You’re flying through the sky in a helicopter. Headset on. You pull up over a mountain ridge and into the warm orange glow of the rising sun over the Pacific Ocean and a coastal grassland below. The sun off of the water is almost blinding. You can feel the warmth fill up the open cockpit. You momentarily become lost in the moment, fixated on the scene in front of you. You regain enough composure to mutter something about how beautiful it is to the pilot. He agrees… then it’s back to business. GPS unit out. We’ve got some birds to count today. Skids on the ground, you hop out of the helicopter (or back out really, very carefully) and crouch down, trying not to be blown over as the chopper becomes airborne again and leaves you. The birds settle down, and the count begins. How many Island Scrub Jays will I see at this point today? When your time is up at the point, you pull out your radio… “Santa Cruz Chopper, this is Bird Watch Two… I’m ready for pick up.” The sound of helicopter blades beating through the air is soon in your ears. You crouch down and brace yourself for the wind again. With a nod from the pilot you’re safe to approach the chopper, place your bag inside, and carefully climb in. (If all of the skid isn’t on the ground, like when being picked up at a steep point, this carefully climbing in becomes even more important… don’t rock the boat…) Repeat until eleven o’clock.
A typical morning conversation does not include the phrase “Where is the helicopter???” Wondering where your lift in the morning is usually only applies to the fabulously rich, politically important, or your caffeinated beverage of choice. The ISSJ crew this spring (and past fall) out on Cruz has been lucky enough to be part of an island wide survey, attempting to get an idea of just how many Jays there are on the island. We’ve seen some pretty cool spots that not many others have seen before. If we tried to count all our points in typical point count, by foot, fashion, this project would take us an entire season. (or more) With the helicopter we can make quick work of it, blitzing the island in just over a week of flying mornings. We’ve discussed the advantages of having little personal helicopters for checking nests, and nest searching. It certainly would make things easier on a few sections of my plots (where otherwise you’re searching for an opening in the scrub, on a crumbly slope, in order to view the opposite slope, and hopefully spot your study Jays.) Of course, these personal choppers would be silent, in order to be stealth.
I could have used one of those choppers this afternoon, hiking out 20 minutes to a nest to check if the young had fledged. The hike (for the fourth day in a row) was worth it though. Today when I showed up I could see one of the nestlings perched on the edge of the nest... Looking back at me cautiously. I didn't want to get any closer for fear of encouraging the little guy to jump. From where I stood it looked like his 3 siblings had already made the leap at some point during the day. The Island Scrub Jay fledglings are huge. To put it in perspective, I'd say almost as big as a full grown Florida Scrub Jay, or at least the females or small males. (With stubby rectrices of course.) I'll have to go back tomorrow to do the final check on the nest, but things look good for Schwarzenegger... Arnie is such a good dad.
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