The Saturday trip to Santa Barbara Island was my second trip to that remote small rock of an island in the Channel. On the last trip (July 2007) I took my bulky bird lens — this time I wish I had not left it behind because of the extremely rich fauna. Santa Barbara Island is further from the mainland than the other islands, and seems to be affected by the weather more than the other islands. Rainy weather seems to be worse on this island. Thus flower viewing is only possible in the calmer months. Because of less than normal March rain this year and the usual higher winds further out to sea, the flowers dried out faster and there was not much to see. Hence it must be difficult to schedule a visit ahead of time to get the best of both the weather and the moisture.

(Baby Brown Pelicans - April 12, 2008)

The views are phenomenal - many of the surrounding islands can be seen from Santa Barbara Island - Anacapa, Santa Cruz, Catalina, Santa Rosa, San Nicolas, etc. I have visited the following islands on SBBG trips - Anacapa Island (2002, 2008), Santa Barbara Island (2007,2008) and Santa Cruz Island (2002). Having had a taste of what there is to see and having learned a lot about the flora and fauna, I think future visits will probably be solo to leisurely explore the islands for longer periods of time - but that may have to wait a few years. However, for a good introduction, there is nothing better than a SBBG trip.

(Horned Lark - April 12, 2008)

Saturday was a beautiful day - clear and calm. The highlights of the day were the many baby pelicans in the large brown pelican “village” nursery (the sun was not in a good place for photos). Another first was seeing the sphinx moth. I also saw a horned lark for the first time hidden in the many acres of wild oats. Invasive plants are pretty bad on Santa Barbara Island, too. But from my short observation it seems that in a dry year, the invasive ice plants provide nectar for butterflies on the island. The butterflies were mostly congregated around the crystalline ice plant - but I did see a western pygmy blue on a native tarweed.

(Sphinx Month - April 12, 2008. This amazing creature flies like a hummingbird - with the wings appearing like a blur to the human eye. I guess 1/400 sec was fast enough for the camera to get a shot of the wings.)

I included my small pocket Canon camera in my backpack. This camera can be used to take videos. (I was inspired to take it with me because of the new Flickr option of uploading and displaying videos.) I edited footage to make two short videos - one of the baby pelicans and one of sea lions in the waters near the pier. Please excuse the shaky movement in the first clip. In the second clip there is a constant high-pitched background sound which I am pretty sure is of birds, but I could not see what they were. They were probably under the platform on which I was standing - swallows? (The controls for the video clips disappear when the mouse is moved away - much like for the slideshows.)

(Western Pygmy Blue - April 12, 2008)

Slideshows

• Santa Barbara Island Photo Slideshow (appended to beginning of last year’s)

Video Clips

• Brown Pelican Nursey
• Sea Lions

• Last year’s post about Santa Barbara Island