Date: 5/21/25 9:52 am From: Grigory Heaton via groups.io <g.heaton...> Subject: [LACoBirds] Field Trip Report: Pasadena Audubon / Santa Cruz Island 5/19/25
This weekend Pasadena Audubon held an all-day field trip ( https://pasadenaaudubon.org/?q=fieldtrips ) to Prisoner's Harbor on Santa Cruz Island, with 17 birders in attendance (including Alex Coffey and myself as trip leads). The unseasonal storm earlier this weekend left us with cool temperatures on the island and quite choppy water on the outbound channel crossing, but weather was otherwise un-stormy with cloudless skies.
One very fun part about any trip to Channel Islands National Park is the bonus mini pelagic and whale-watching trip that is the crossing from Ventura with Island Packers. About halfway across the channel, we encountered a spectacular feeding frenzy of 20+ Humpback whales, thousands of Common Dolphin, and thousands more Brown Pelicans and Sooty Shearwaters (with a handful of Pink-footed Shearwaters mixed in). It's common to see a whale or two at some point during a day trip to the Channel Islands, but this was something else with up to 5 huge whales visible next to each other at any given time and the water swarming with birds and dolphins. The return crossing in the afternoon had a similar experience with even more Sooty Shearwaters (possibly the same group, although no whales), many so full of fish that they couldn't even properly fly away when the boat passed by.
Once on the island, we started off by birding Prisoner's Harbor itself, which consists of a few non-native eucalyptus trees and a restored native wetland. The combination of the whale stop and having to drop other day passengers off at Scorpion on the east end of the island meant that we didn't land on the island until noon, but that didn't stop the resident Island Scrub-jays from showing up almost immediately with a group of four flying around the trees and foraging on exposed cliffsides.
One exciting facet of this trip is that we were granted one-time access to private land owned by The Nature Conservancy, allowing us to spend most of the afternoon birding a road leading into the island's interior along the central valley west of the NPS boundary. Here we had many singing resident birds including abundant Hutton's Vireos, the island-breeding "sordida" subspecies of Orange-crowned Warbler, and a subspecies of Bewick's Wren endemic to the island. Migrants seem to have passed through already, with a few calling Western Flycatchers (which breed on the island, formerly Pacific-slope) being the only migratory species encountered.
Due to the extremely delayed rain this year, surprising numbers of native wildflowers were still up, including many island endemic species - highlights here included a Channel Islands bush poppy with large yellow flowers, Island paintbrush, and red Island bush-monkeyflower. Northern Island morning glory, a variety of our mainland morning glory found only on the 4 northern islands, was abundant. Endemic Candleholder Dudleya (an island succulent only found from about Prisoner's Harbor west to Santa Rosa island) wasn't in bloom yet, but were common and looking healthy after winter rains finally arrived a few months ago. Island Scrub-jays were extremely common here - we had around 20 birds just on the valley road, with another half a dozen or so within NPS land near the harbor. This is far more jays than I have ever seen on a day trip to the island!
Other highlights included a California quail which posed for the entire group for several minutes on a woodpile along the valley road, and a last-second Santa Cruz Island Fox which was found right before the boat was due to leave and seen by about 2/3 of the group exhibiting this species' characteristic chill and unbothered attitude. In addition to the sequel amazing Sooty Shearwater and Common Dolphin feeding swarm, the boat ride back to Ventura also yielded quick flybys of Scripps' Murrelet, Cassin's Auklet, and a few breeding plumage Pacific Loons.
A shoutout to all attendees for a great day out on the islands, to The Nature Conservancy for allowing us access to this seldom-birded area, and to Island Packers for a great experience on the boat as always!
