Despite being born and raised in California, I have never been out to see the Channel islands, which is a National Park! Yesterday, we took the boat through fairly rough waters to Santa Cruz Island which is the largest island in the chain and we saw the endemic blue scrub jay!
From Ventura, it is an hour across open waters to Santa Cruz Island. It was quite rough--and I can only imagine how terrifying the passage must be in a storm!
We saw thousands of brown Pelicans--and some White Pelicans in Ventura
Santa Cruz Island is the largest island in the chain (and also largest island in California).
The ecological was surprisingly different from the mainland.
There were beautiful wild flowers and lovely gentle hills.... filled with birds and foxes!
Happily, we saw the endemic island jay almost immediately disembarking!Tragopogon porrifolius is a plant cultivated for its ornamental flower, edible root, and herbal properties.
It also grows wild in many places and is one of the most widely known species of the salsify genus, Tragopogon. It is commonly known as purple or common salsify, oyster plant, vegetable oyster, Jerusalem star,goats beard or simply salsify (although these last two names are also applied to other species, as well).
The endemic fox
Loggerhead shrike
Help from Ed Stonick, 先輩 in Pasadena Audobon
shrike is a distinct subspecies and resident on the channel islands...
The island loggerhead shrike is an endemic, genetically distinct sub-species of loggerhead shrike found on Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz Islands in the northern Channel Islands and on Santa Catalina Island in the south. ... Populations on all three islands are greatly diminished from historical populations.Mar 26, 2021
Beautiful hiking
Another fox was resting under the pier
So many people spent their time down on the water--it was so beautiful. Alicia said she loved kayaking here.... This was my favorite bird of the entire day because he took a bath in the tide pools and then carried on for 15 minutes getting perfectly dry and fixing his feathers! I think he’s a rufus-crowned sparrow
Pacific-slope flycatcher (our first flycatcher).
The beautiful water...
On the way back dolphins were swimming and jumping along both sides of the boat!
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