Birding the Channel Islands: Discover the Endemic Island Scrub-Jay

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The Channel Islands just off the California coast near Ventura has been a bucket list destination for us for some time. Santa Cruz Island is home to the only endemic island bird in North America, the Channel Island Scrub Jay. It is also home to another endemic species, the Island Fox. We only visited Santa Cruz Island for a day trip, but we were fortunate enough to see both!

Often referred to as the Galapagos Islands of North America the Channel Islands consist of five islands near Ventura and Santa Barbara California. Years ago when my kids were little we took them to see an IMAX film at the Seattle Center called Back to the Brink, a short film about the recovery of endangered species. One of those species was the Island Fox. The film details how the native Bald Eagles were exposed to DDT between the 40’s and 60’s and began to die off. This decline allowed Golden Eagles to fill the void. Unfortunately for the Island Fox, Golden Eagles are excellent mammal hunting birds and the foxes having no natural predators were an easy source of food for the Golden Eagles. By the late 90’s they estimated only about 100 foxes were left between all the islands. As they were listed as endangered a recovery effort was made. By transplanting the Golden Eagles off of the Islands, Bald Eagles began to move back in and prevent the Golden Eagles to re-establish. The Island Fox has since bounced back and now thrive on the islands along with the Bald Eagles.

If you’d like to visit the islands the best way to get their is by ferry. Island Packers in Ventura offers ferry service daily to the Islands. There are established campsites so you can even pack in and stay a few nights and catch a later return ferry. We took a morning ferry to Santa Cruz Island where there are multiple trails to hike. On the ride over we saw loads of dolphins, whales, birds and even a quick glimpse of a sun fish! Here is a short clip of one of the many dolphin pods that swam along side the ferry.

We took the trip to Scorpion Cove and hiked about a 5 to 6 miles loop combining a few different trails on the island. Our top targets to find were of course the Island Fox and the Channel Island Scrub Jay but we saw many other birds as well. Sitting in a tiny estuary leading to the beach right near the boat drop off was a Black-crowned Night Heron. These birds I’ve always wanted to spot here in Washington but have never had the luck, I was not expecting to see one here! As well as the Night Heron there were Horned Lark scouring the beach for food and many Rufous-crowned Sparrow’s which were also a first for our life list.

As we ended our hike and finished the final descent back to Scorpion Cove we were giving up hope on seeing an Island Fox. We were told they were fairly common in the camping areas and the small visitors center near the dock since they were unafraid of people and often poked around looking for any leftovers people may have dropped while visiting. Just as we neared the bottom we noticed down below on the trail ahead of us a small cat sized creature heading down to the visitors center. Sure enough it was an Island Fox! We saw someone sitting at a picnic table and the fox simply walked right beneath them under the table and continued on, giving them quite a surprise. Another fox arrived and they both trotted around the Visitor Center as if no one was there.

We saw more birds as well shown in the gallery below including a Yellow-rumped Warbler, Loggerhead Shrike, and Black Phoebe. If you plan a visit down to LA or Santa Barbara be sure to take a day and make the trip out to Channel Islands!

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Most of these shots were taken with the Sony a7 along with the Sony FE 200-600mm lens.
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