We have reached 91 birds.
We are 9 birds away from our seemingly lofty early season goal of trapping and banding 100 Island Scrub Jays. Yesterday was a record day of 7 birds in about 5 hours. Previous records, (set by Katie and I in Coches of 4, and then later of 6 in the same area) were smashed by the team effort of Colin, Katie and I. Katie had scoped out our sweet spot about a week ago during an island wide oak survey that we conducted. The whole process of banding, gathering morphological data, taking feather and blood samples, taking bill morphology photos and release takes about 30 minutes per bird. We were maxed out. While I was banding, checking for molt, and ageing one bird, Katie was finishing processing another, and Colin was pulling the trap on the next bird.
Today our stellar team managed to capture two birds in the live oak stands on the ridges surrounding Diablo, the highest mountain on Santa Cruz. Not knowing exactly where the birds would be, or if they would even be interested in peanuts, capturing two was a good day. On the drive up in the morning we were treated to a beautiful sunrise over the central valley, looking east, towards the mainland.
Colin, Sinead and I took a day off on the island recently. Sinead and I woke up with the rest of the crew and caught a ride to the Coches plot, then hiked to the beach. We spent a few quiet hours chatting in the sand and wandering the beach.
On the beach we saw the resident ISSJ pair, one of whom likes to sit in a snag looking over the ocean (not a bad life.) Also spotted were a Yellow-rumped warbler, White crowned sparrow, Purple finch, Spotted sandpiper, Western Grebe, and Black bellied plover to name a few. I also found what appeared to be a good portion of a gull skeleton.
Only 9 more birds to the Ultimate Island Reward… Waking up at Christy Ranch, a super greasy breakfast of everything you could think of (eggs, bacon, sausage, French toast, pancakes…) followed by a day off on the West end of the island and exploring Frasier Point.
2 comments:
That's not a gull.
looks alien!
Are you sure that's a gull skeleton and not some alien that died there? Looks alien.
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