Date: 4/5/26 1:49 am From: Clay Kempf <ltjaegerv4...> Subject: [MBBIRDS] Jennifer Green
I'm sad to share that the Saturday Santa Cruz Sentinel includes an obituary for long-time Santa Cruz Birder and pelagic trip leader Jennifer Green. Details in the obit are vague, other than to say she passed away on 3/31 in Botswana.
Jennifer was one of the most frequent co-leaders on the 33 years of Shearwater Journeys pelagic trips that I was part of, and I can't believe she's gone. When I'd see her in the morning as we boarded the boat, I knew we were in for a good trip. Jenn always paid a lot of attention to the customers; showing them where we were on the ocean on overcast days via a hand-held GPS device; spending extra time chumming and taking the pressure off the other leaders; calling out birds, and bringing a container of "ropes/red licorice vines" that were generously shared with all.
It was always fun to be the leader who spotted and called out the first albatross of the day, and back in my younger days of 20/15 vision, I was luckily enough to do that fairly often. But there was a two-to-three-year stretch when Jennifer beat me EVERY time. And she had something like a ten-year run of seeing an (Black-footed) Albatross on every trip. She was also part of and/or a witness to some of the more infamous California birding events of recent decades, and it was always fun to share those memories with her and others that had lived them.
