Mini-Pelagic Trip: Santa Cruz Island – Prisoners Harbor

By Miles

The week before last week, we followed a PAS (Pasadena Audubon Society) field trip to the Santa Barbara Channel and the Channel Islands NP – Santa Cruz Island. We started our trip at Ventura with Alex Coffey and Grigory Heaton aboard Island Explorer, operated by Island Packers, went birding in a restricted area on Santa Cruz Island, and got back to Ventura in the evening aboard Islander.

Mini-Pelagic: Ventura → Prisoners:

Although it was a sunny day today, the situation on board was not so good at first; the wind is quite strong, the boat was bumping like a roller coaster, and there were nearly NO pelagic birds!

As we went nearly halfway through the channel, we still didn’t see any pelagic birds. And that’s when we spotted a huge area of “smoke” far away. The pilot must have also seen it and changed our direction towards it.

When we got closer, we found out it was a flock of a couple of thousand birds! We stopped right next to the area and started to enjoy this “feeding frenzy”, where millions of fish were chased to the surface by thousands of dolphins (common dolphins this time) and whales (20+ Humpbacks for us), birds (4000 ~ 5000 for us), and marine mammals (sea lions for this time) came to join the giant feast! There were 2000+ Sooty Shearwaters (one of our target species) and several Pink-footed Shearwaters. They were all over the place, covering the area like clouds and the tails of whales popped up in any direction at any time, and sometimes even 5 getting up side by side! The water is filled with dolphins and fish. It is truly amazing!!!!!!!!! We didn’t even know where to look! The pilot said it is extremely rare to get such a huge “Feeding Frenzy” even on a Whale Watching Trip!

After slowly getting through the remarkable “Feeding Frenzy”, we finally reached Santa Cruz Island 1 hour later than expected, but it was definitely worth it!

Santa Cruz Island around Prisoners:

As soon as we got out of the boat the main target of the trip, the mysterious, endemic species of Santa Cruz Island appeared right in front of us! it was the ISLAND SCRUB-JAY! As we went through the restricted area we saw nearly 20 more Scrub-Jays. It was really a lot more than expected! Except the iconic Scrub-Jay, we also saw the endemic subspecies of the Orange-crowned Warbler and Bewick’s Wren. There were really lots of birds at a place rarely visited by people.

Although the birds are super active and doing great job, the other iconic species of Santa Cruz, Island Fox, still didn’t appear. We went exploring around the harbor trying to find it the last moment, but only one person got a glimpse of it. At the last exploration just before boarding we saw Grigory running out just as we got to the entrance of the restricted area. As we follow him there, under a car, there it is, the cute tiny Island Fox! It completely ignored us and allowed us to get photos of him right in front of us making funny movements!

The Island Scrub-Jay is a medium-large-sized passerine, about the size of two and a half Yellow-rumped Warblers, with a typical Scrub-Jay/magpie shape (long-tailed jay). Its beak and leg are black and its crown, nape, sides of breast, wings, uppertail coverts, and tail are all royal blue. It has a white throat and middle of breast, and except for these auricular, malar, below and behind eyes, tufts, Lores and nasal blackish-blue, supercilium white. Back, scapulars and rump dark brown, underparts pale gray. They usually live alone or in pairs, in open oak lands only on the Santa Cruz Island of Channel Islands NP, feeding on all kinds of foods. Although, have no range overlapping with any other Aphelocoma Sp. (scrub-jays), it is extremely similar to all of them especially California Scrub-Jay. The major difference between them is that the Island species are much larger, darker near eyes and back, have relatively much longer bill, tail, and tarsi, and have very different vocalizations.

(Island Scrub-Jay with California Quail, May 18th, 2025, Photo by Miles)

(Island Scrub-Jay eating endemic acorn, May 18th, 2025, Photo by Miles)

(Island Scrub-Jay, May 18th, 2025, Photo by Miles)

(Red-tailed Hawk with nesting materials, May 18th, 2025, Photo by Miles)

Mini-Pelagic: Prisoners → Ventura:

On the way back, although we didn’t saw the whales again, we meet the Feeding Franzy again!!! There were even more Sooty Shearwaters with Pink-footed Shearwaters mixed in them! Some of the Sooty Shearwaters are so full of fish that they can took of properly! Some of them even got runovered by the boat and splash out of the water in panic mode, but still not being able to fly very far!

As we got through all these funny Shearwaters, we finally got a auklet and two murrelets! They are the Cassin’s Auklet and Scripps’s Murrelets! They are so cute and funny!

The Sooty Shearwater is a medium-small-sized natatore, about the size of three Yellow-rumped Warbler, with a typical shearwater shape (thin, long, and strange billed gull, or small-sized albatross). It is all brownish-black, except the pale area of the central underwings. It usually live in huge groups or mix in huge group of other shearwaters in pelagic areas, and often dives for fish, and breed in the southern hemisphere, while winter in northern hemisphere.

(Sooty Shearwater, May 18th, 2025, Photo by Miles)

(Sooty Shearwater taking off, May 18th, 2025, Photo by Miles)

(Sooty Shearwaters, May 18th, 2025, Photo by Miles)

(Sooty Shearwater, May 18th, 2025, Photo by Miles)

(Sooty Shearwater swimming, May 18th, 2025, Photo by Miles)

(Sooty Shearwater, May 18th, 2025, Photo by Miles)

(Sooty Shearwaters, May 18th, 2025, Photo by Miles)

(Sooty Shearwater, May 18th, 2025, Photo by Miles)

The Pink-footed Shearwater is a medium-sized natatore, about the size of three and a half Yellow-rumped Warbler, with a typical shearwater shape (thin, long, and strange billed gull, or small-sized albatross). Its head is gray with a lighter throat and a pink beak with dark tip. Its underparts are white and have a dark brownish-gray upperparts. Its tail is dark brownish-gray and its foot is pink. Its under wing covers are white with gray stripes and its flight feathers are dark gray. It usually live in groups or mix in huge group of other shearwaters in pelagic areas, and often dives for fish, and it is much bigger than any other shearwaters in this region.

(Pink-footed Shearwater, May 18th, 2025, Photo by Miles)

The Cassin’s Auklet is a small-sized natatore, about the size of two Yellow-rumped Warblers, and shapes like an in-watered fat cowbird. It’s all dark gray except that its white belly, whitish iris, and small white crescents above the eye. It likes to move in pairs, in pelagic areas, nest on islands of the west coast of North America, and often dive pretty deep for small fishes and marine invertebrates to eat.