It's the fall on Santa Cruz Island. Which can mean only one thing for the Island Scrub Jays... Time to cache some acorns. (kind of like bringing home the bacon, or making the doughnuts.) The ISSJs are busy plucking whatever they seem to think is the choicest acorns from the oaks and burying them in whatever they seem to think is the choicest hiding place. (Very carefully placing small leaves and rocks over the site, disguising it from any sneaky Jays that may be watching to see where they put their prized possession.)It was all business in the Coches Prietos field plot this morning. Getting close enough to a bird to catch a color combo was not an easy feat. They didn't seem to stop moving, flying from near a ridge top, down to a riparian area, and back again.
It's been great seeing the same birds again. This is the first field job that I've come back to where I know I'm seeing the same individuals from before. Of course I insisted that the first day in the field, on the field station plot, that I would hunt down all the birds that I followed during the breeding season. I found them all, besides two who seem to be MIA. I was very happy to see one of Arnie's fledges from this year (AR/GOY... I call him/ her "Are-goy"), and a bird banded as a nestling in Coches who has decided to make the Field Station plot home. I'm hoping to catch up with the missing birds the next day we focus on the field station.(Obama and Sarah Palin are missing!) I also managed to find the poison oak, and in less than 48 hours on the island got myself all itchy again. It seems to get worse every time, but the good news is it seems to go away faster every time.
Thursday evening we made the short trip to Brian's place. We BBQd up some chicken over the fire, (after thoroughly saturating the ground around the steel fire pit with water), made a salad fresh from the garden, put some cornbread in the oven, and played an intense game of dice (that I won.)Later, after eating, we filled and corked 25 bottles of Brian's wine. He's had this batch going for the past year, made from grapes found on the island, remnants of the days when there was a vineyard and olive oil press. Now the bottles need about 6 more months of ageing to be just right. We had some problems getting a good siphon going... so there was plenty of opportunity for us all to get a taste, and I can say that it's going to be good. (It already is.) I think that we've decided on naming the batch "The Barking Fox," after the island foxes that like to visit Brian's garden and then bark on his back porch. We're planning on a label-making party sometime soon. (At which we will probably open one of those 25 bottles.)
It's good to be back.
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