Spring Notes on the Birds of Santa Cruz Island, Cal., April, 1898.
by Jos. Maillard, San Geronimo, Cal.
Santa Cruz Island is a long, narrow mountainous island lying south of Santa Barbara and distant 21 miles from the nearest mainland. Its length is 25 miles and its width varies from 1½ to 5 miles. The coast line is exceedingly irregular and precipitous, with very few portions of the actual shore accessible from the land side. The island is very rough and jagged, principally volcanic with ranges of hills and rocks in every direction, attaining in places an elevation of over 2,000 feet. It is broken by many canons, most of which are deep and the sides almost invariably steep. In spite of the heavy backbone of volcanic rock, quite a large proportion of the island is composed of grass and brush land, there being large open areas of grass and thousands of acres of impenetrable chaparral, together with great tracts of sage brush, sometimes intermingled with cactus. In places are numerous live oaks, varying in size from scrub oaks to noble trees. The open portions contained but few birds and most of the specimens collected were obtained by crawling up the bottoms of canons containing a little water, keeping a sharp lookout for cactus, into which birds when shot would often most exasperatingly roll. In regard to this vegetable abomination, while it exists only in certain areas it really seemed as if there were not a spot on the whole island where one could put a hand on the ground, kneel or fall down, without coming in contact with a piece of the stuff which had been rolled, blown or been carried there.
The first place visited was Scorpion Harbor on April 5, 1898, a small cove on the east end of the island. This little bay is the mouth of a narrow valley some miles in length, but which becomes in reality only a rocky canon about a mile and a half back from the shore. The ranch buildings—old adobes mostly—are situated 200 yards from the little beach at a point where the rocky hills appeared to almost close together, the valley widening immediately back of them. There seemed to be a sort of "draw" at this spot and the wind howled most of the time night and day. The landing was made about four o'clock in the afternoon and the first birds seen were House Finches and Rock Wrens (Carpodacus americanus frontalis? and Salpinctes obsoletus) quantities of the former, and quite a number of the latter singing most musically from the rocky sides of the gorge.
On the way over from Santa Barbara no sea birds were seen except a few Shearwaters, Western Gulls and some Cormorants, with an occasional Scoter. About a mile east of Scorpion Harbor is a large square-looking rock near the shore which is evidently a breeding place for the Gulls and Cormorants. The country within a mile or two of this harbor is mostly grass land, with little or no brush and but few trees, cut up by many canons and gullies with exceedingly steep sides. The tops of the adjacent hills and some of the more rolling slopes were the abiding places at this time of numerous Island Horned Larks (Otocoris alpestris insularis), some thirty of which were captured. From the fact that some of these birds contained eggs almost ready to be laid it was evident that they were nesting, but hours of patient search failed to reveal a nest. The birds would flush from small hollows, from the shadows of small rocks, tufts of grass, sides of trails etc., but no sign of a nest could be found. After most carefully exploring three localities in the neighborhood where the birds were very numerous, without success, I came to the conclusion that their feeding and nesting grounds were not the same, and the latter remained undiscovered.
Many Intermediate Sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophyrs intermedia) frequented the corrals and yards, but were mostly in a sadly moulted plumage, preparing for their spring migration. Some groves of eucalyptus trees planted further up the valley were the dwelling place of quite a number of birds common to
