(non) ghost stories, and the jay formerly known as WR/AY

Santa Cruz Island has a rather interesting history as a ranching property. Erosion was the negative legacy left by this era, while many historic buildings the positive. This past weekend Katie, Sinead, Colin and I drove out to the far West end of the island. Our plan was to spend two days and two nights trapping birds on that side of the island. The West end is casually referred to as Christy’s. If I remember correctly, this is because back when the island belonged to one man, Justinian Caire, when he died, he left that part of the island to one of his daughters (named Christy.) There is an old ranch house within 10 minutes walk of a massive beach, as well as a barn and another building. I’m not sure the original function of this building, but it had a kitchen and dining room that we used while we were staying out there.


Supposedly the Christy ranch house is haunted. The story I was told was that it isn’t Christy, but a different woman. This woman was married to the captain of a ship, or something like that, and when she found out that he was trafficking in people (Chinese) up to San Francisco Bay, she jumped off the boat when it passed through the channel between Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz. Needless to say, she didn’t make it. Now, I’m not one to believe in ghosts. But some of the stories I heard, (from pretty reputable sources, and people who also are not the type to believe in ghosts) left me a little weirded out. (Windows slamming open and shut, feet being played with in the middle of the night, pressure on backs of necks and chests, being picked up out of bed and dropped… to name a few.) But being stubborn, I decided that I would just conveniently ignore said stories until I saw for myself. I think I was still the most anxious. Colin and Katie wanted to see something, and Sinead went off to explore the ranch house at dusk by herself.



Nothing happened.

Now that may seem rather anticlimactic, but I blame it on a few factors. Supposedly this ghost likes men more than women. (So our ratio was a bit off.) Things have also most often happened to people who were completely convinced that the whole ghost thing was just ridiculous. (And we all were pretty open to something being possible. Although I did spend a good deal of time the first night being rather jumpy - and then rationalizing anything I saw.) We’ll have another chance for the ghost to make an appearance though. We’re thinking of having a little Halloween shindig out there.

We’ve had success with our trapping as of late. Today Katie and I set a new record for most birds caught in one day this fall. In about 5 hours we managed to catch 6 Island Scrub Jays in our looney tunes style box trap. The crew has set ourselves an arbitrary goal of trapping 50 birds before we open a can of special cheese that we’ve been saving.



Today Katie and I managed to get ourselves to within two birds of that goal. We caught 5 previously unbanded birds, and re-captured one. We have been trapping all new birds, but today I had to make an exception for the bird banded WR/AY. She was being incredibly annoying when I was trying to capture the unbanded birds in the area. Being completely comfortable with the box trap she would jump right under and grab as many peanuts as she could fit in her bill, then take off to cache them. It wasn’t long before she was back again. We were friends for a while, when she showed the unbanded birds how getting peanuts was done, but not later, when she altered her trap entering tactics. This consisted of landing on the top, hopping onto the stick, then jumping down. This was problematic. Often when she’d land on the top the trap would sag to one side. Or when she jumped on the stick it would be knocked off kilter. This meant that the next time she decided to land on the contraption it would collapse. This is not something that you want an unbanded bird who is just getting comfortable with the idea of taking a peanut from under the strange wire box to witness. As a result I kept on having to reset the trap after every time WR/AY came. (Which was a lot.) I was not amused. After about 10 or 15 minutes of this nonsense, Katie, who was down below finishing up processing a bird we had caught previously, could hear me up above letting WR/AY know how I felt about her trap tactics. When Katie showed up and I still hadn’t been able to get an unbanded bird, I decided it was time to pull it on WR/AY. The short lived vendetta ended with me replacing her color bands entirely. She had been banded with 5 bands at one point, but had managed to remove one, and the Red band was nearly gone. (I didn’t even have to cut it off, when I applied pressure it just cracked and broke off.) In honor of the affection that most of the crew has for this bird, (which is more amused annoyance), I banded her UGG/AY. Ugg.

UGG/AY is not the only bird that has incited trapping vendettas. Up in our Portezuela plot there is a newly formed pair of birds. The female is banded OPR/AP. We affectionately refer to her as Oprah. Her unbanded male became Steadman. (After the real Oprah’s long time partner.) Steadman evaded the box trap two times, and landed on the stick another, collapsing it, much to his surprise. So needless to say he was trap shy. We had to employ different methods if we were going to be successful… So we broke out our newly arrived bownet, and set it up for a first time use. Success came eventually, and Colin happily banded his nemesis.

To the Aphelocomobile!

Three weeks of our ten week fall field season have already passed. Things are up and running and we are well on our way to the goal of catching one Island Scrub Jay per day on Santa Cruz. (We’ve got 26 new, never caught or banded Jays thus far.) We have been trying unsuccessfully for the past three days to get a Coches day in… That side of the island has been completely socked in in fog all morning. We did an extra field station day, then moved onto a banding blitz of sorts.


Yesterday we caught 4 birds at the orchard on the island. Today was a bit slower. After driving most of the way to Coches before seeing it was completely covered in fog again, we decided to take the ridge road to the bishop pine forest and the sentinela region. We had some great views along the way of the sun rising up over the clouds and fog pouring like a waterfall over sections of the South Ridge on the island. We also took a few goofy crew shots.



The pines being completely socked in as well we continued on down to Portezuela. Katie and I banded while Mario, Jess, Colin, and Sinead tackled the caching and foraging plot birds. Katie and I found the group of floaters we wanted to target for capture pretty quickly. The only problem was that they were not the most cooperative Jays when it came to the trap. One or two Jays would quickly duck under the trap for a peanut about once every half hour or so. A group of about 7 or 8 were all perched around, chuffing and squabbling, but seemingly lacking the guts to go grab the stash of peanuts under the trap. Our only hypothesis as to why they were so timid this morning was the close call that one jay had with a Peregrine Falcon. I heard the incoming whoosh of wings, heard a Jay alarm call as it dove into a big oak we were set up near, then saw the Peregrine veer off at the last second, and blast off in the opposite direction. I watched in my binoculars as it flew away being mobbed by small songbirds. The only Jay we did capture wasn’t of our own doing. One bird flew down to check out the trap, landed on the stick propping up the wire box, and the whole thing collapsed, trapping him/ her underneath. (The stick is attached to a string. Normally we pull it out, trapping the bird underneath when they take their time weighing peanuts, choosing the best one.) When the day heated up we hopped back into the white Toyota that we have now dubbed “the aphelocomobile” and made our way back to the cabins.

Time to cache the acorns...

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.

The most wonderful time of the year

It's that time again!

Saturday I fly to LAX... Monday I step off the Island Packers boat onto the dock at Prisoner's Harbor. Back on Santa Cruz for a few more months of Island Scrub Jay research.

Of course, I will keep you posted.

The end, and a new beginning to come

I left Santa Cruz Island on June 15th, knowing that I would be returning in late August for more Scrub jay studies.



The day my Island Packers boat was leaving from Prisoner's harbor I had the treat of riding halfway around the island with the remaining Bald eagle field crew members. We were on a re-sighting and sightseeing zodiak excursion. In the approximately 5 hours that we spent zipping along the coast we resighted 3 of the study Bald eagles, saw countless Brandt's cormorants, Brown pelicans, Pigeon guillemots, and Western gulls.



We also saw sealions and seals. One large male sealion was not amused when we interupted his lunch of sunfish fins. We had been cruising by in the zodiak when we spotted some suspicious splashing to one side. We steered over to the disturbance just in time to see a sealion rear up out of the water with a gigantic sunfish in his jaws, shake it around, and then dissapear back beneath the waves. Naturally we were excited about this spotting, so we hung around to see what would happen next. The sealion porpoised out of the water with his jaws wide open, teeth bared, and made the most awful snarling growl at us. It was intimidating. Especially considering if he wanted to he probably could have made life harder for us.



After leaving the island, pre-driving cross county (yet again.) I spent a few days visiting Nora in the Mono Basin. We got in some excellent birding, made some delicious dinners, and drank some good wine. We saw Brewer's sparrows, Green-tailed towhees, Clark's nutcrackers, Juniper titmice, Bushtits, Mountain chickadees, Osprey, THOUSANDS of California gulls, Violet-green swallows, Rough winged swallows, Yellow warbler, Wilson's phalaropes, Western tanager, and Common nighthawk... and that's only naming a few! We also managed to wake up at 3:30 one morning to be out kayaking on Mono Lake, in the Tufa, as the sun was rising. Tufa are basically mineral deposits made by freshwater springs that partially feed the extremely saline Mono Lake. Now that the water level has dropped, (due to water being taken by the Los Angeles DWP from source streams) these interesting "Tufa towers" can be seen.




Mono Lake is so salty that the gulls that were paddling around on it looked like they were almost floating on the air. There are no fish in Mono Lake, only brine shrimp. And one gull eats thousands of them in a day. There are millions of the tiny shrimp in the lake. When the sun had some up we could see them floating around in the green water. It almost looked like a thin shrimp soup. Later in the summer there's even more of them!

After leaving Lee Vining and Mono Lake I sprinted to Ohio to visit family, then made a quick hop to Pennsylvania to visit friends, and then another quick jump to Connecticut to see more family.



I arrived back in New Hampshire on the 25th... and promptly began lab work a few days later.

I'll be back in the field in late August for another few months studying Island scrub jays on Santa Cruz. I'm already excited!

An enemy in the nest

So I had the distinct pleasure of witnessing a nest being predated right before my very eyes. (Or unlucky circumstance... it's a little of both really.) Most of the time we never know what has eaten a particular clutch of eggs or nestlings. We have ideas (Island Fox, Island Spotted Skunk, Cooper's Hawk, Common Raven), but don't know for sure unless we see the event in action, or get it on video. Documented nest predators of Island scrub jay nests up to this point are only the Island Fox and Cooper's Hawk. These were both captured on video, and are up on youtube. (Cooper's Hawk, Island Fox)The predation event that I happened to witness was a new nest predator... and was caught on video.

I had put up a hard disk video camera on Taurus' nest in Coches at approximately 6 in the morning. The video would be useful for looking at feeding rates of nestlings. I believe the nestlings were about 7 days old. When I came back around 12 to remove the camera and check the nest things got interesting. I extended my mirror pole and stuck it up over the nest, trying to get a look inside at how many nestlings were in there. But I couldn't see anything. The nest looked empty. That wasn't right. I'd just seen the adults with full crops. So I pulled the pole back, readjusted the mirror, and went to put the mirror up again. I didn't have to. When I got close to the nest I heard a little "peep!" and saw a nestling butt appear over the rim of the nest. That's weird I thought. If I was going to see any part of the nestling at this stage it should just be the tip of a begging mouth. I looked a little closer... That's when I noticed that it appeared that there was a lizard like face around that nestling butt. I quickly ran out of the nest clump and grabbed my camera.



Sure enough, a Gopher Snake had somehow found the nest and wound its way up in there. It was now mawing down on one of three nestlings. However, I disturbed the snake's lunch, and it decided that one nestling was enough when faced with the larger human predator now hovering over the nest. The snake abandoned ship, and moved out of the nest as quick as its now sluggish body would take it.



And that was the end of one of Taurus' nestlings.

Another resident of Cruz

The Island scrub jays are not the only endemic wildlife found on Santa Cruz Island by any means. Another particularly charismatic species endemic to the Channel Islands is the Island Fox.



I have had a few run ins with these little guys, and little they are. Not much bigger than your average housecat. They’re incredibly curious. I have had to chase a few off who were following me while I was either nest searching or on my way to check a nest. They seem to like to follow in any paths that we leave through tall grass. It does appear to be a bit easier working though that grass in a path rather than attempting to swim through it themselves. They’ll follow along with their eyes all squinty (they are most active at night), and their tiny noses in the air, sniffing.

I had a particularly curious fox inspect my bag and nest pole while I was sitting on a rock nearby.



It was entertaining until they decided to nibble a bit at the pack, and then attempted to pull it with them. We cannot leave any boots, socks or other potentially enticing items outside of our cabins at night. The foxes will carry them off into the brush, most certainly to never be found again. Or at least never found again by their original owners. Random partnerless socks and shoes have been found out in the field. The foxes are like curious puppies, carrying off anything they can that interests them. Wandering over our deck in the night in search of such interesting items they also like to leave us little presents. We have to be careful not to step in these in the morning.

The closest encounter of the Island Fox kind that I have had happened with the same fox who attempted to carry my stuffed field bag away with it. I was sitting on a rock watching a pair of birds when the fox appeared. I decided to just sit still and see how close the fox would get. The answer was that the fox would attempt to grab the boot on my foot by the laces. (Presumably to try and carry it away and gnaw on the leather a bit.) He or she decided that that was a bad idea and scurried off when I exclaimed “Hey!” in surprise.