November 30, 2004
Thanksgiving trip day 3 - soggy on Santa Cruz
The first hours of daylight today were spent tracking down plastic ticks in LA. We located a large mixed flock of parrots near Chapman University in Orange - the tickable Red-crowned Parrot, along with good numbers of Mitred Parakeet and a single Lilac-crowned Parrot.
While speeding along Highway 22, we saw about a dozen Spotted Doves. For obvious reasons I didn't stop to digiscope these birds! At Marina del Rey I managed another two US birds - Long-tailed Duck and Royal Tern. These Greater Scaup were showing reasonably well with Mallards on a nearby channel.
With no time to spare we raced over to Ventura to catch the ferry across to Santa Cruz Island, in search of the endemic Island Scrub-Jay. My housemates have both lived and worked on Santa Cruz Island, and assured me it was impossible to miss the birds, which can often be seen at picnic tables on the beach before landing! We arrived at our landing point (Scorpion) and I eagerly scanned the picnic tables - no Scrub Jays. To cut a long story short, over the next three hours of hiking up Scorpion Canyon in the cold and drizzle, we saw 2 Scrub-Jays, one of which showed for about 2 seconds as it dashed into a bush and was never seen to emerge! The second bird was a bit more obliging and I managed this shot, illustrating the darker blue head colour and longer bill than its mainland counterpart.
The moral of the story: if your only purpose in visiting the island is to see the Scrub-Jay, make sure you disembark at Prisoner's Cove, not Scorpion! Having said that, we saw many interesting birds around Scorpion: the endemic race of Allen's Hummingbird, Townsend's Warbler and Merlin in the eucalyptus grove, Rock Wren and Rufous-crowned Sparrow in the canyon and Peregrine, Osprey and Black Turnstone along the shore.
The crossing itself produced several interesting sightings, the best of which was excellent views of my life Black-vented Shearwaters right alongside the boat.
We also saw Northern Fulmar and Sooty Shearwater, Dall's Porpoise, Common Dolphin and the first Gray Whale of the season.
