Santa Cruz Island
Natural History Field Quarter '16
20 April 2016: Day 1!
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CA: Santa Barbara Co: Cuyama Valley: Cottonwood Canyon: Condors Hope Ranch
Today was the first day of our second trip! We drove down from Santa Cruz yesterday and got to stop for a couple hours at the Indians. This was a beautiful paradise in California chaparral in the Los Padres National Forest. We got to explore the watering hole and surrounding areas and enjoy the sunny day back together again — it’s safe to say we missed this.
This morning we woke up in a pile on the tarp at Condor’s Hope vineyard and watched the sunrise over the Sierra Madres. Steve showed us his dry-farming techniques and we learned about reconnecting the culture in agriculture. We walked up the ridge North East of the ranch and marveled in the new worlds to discover.
After lunch and relaxing in the shade of the Blue Oak, we pile into the van and drive up to Bates Canyon. In typical field-quarter-fashion we spend the next four hours meandering a maximum of a quarter-mile. We are lost and immersed in our worlds of curiosity — Lupita looks at ants, Paige watched a spider, a group of excited onlookers witnesses two Western Fence-tail lizards copulate (it was great!), and the rest of us pull apart plants to try to figure out their secrets. Not even one day back and it all makes more sense: everything is new and there’s so much to learn.
Author: Lily Urman
21 April 2016: Santa Cruz Island, Here We Come!
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CA: Santa Barbara Co: Cuyama Valley to Santa Cruz Island
Today started out with a little chaos. As one would expect from a 4:21 am wakeup. As it was April 21st at 4:21am and Carrie’s 21st birthday we sang her a birthday tune in a near whisper as we rose. It was a very lovely way to wake up and start the day. Here we go! We packed up our things and loaded the vans to take off from Steve’s ranch at Condor’s Hope en route to Ventura to to catch the ferry. Everyone got some more shut eye on the drive there. Shoutout to those awesome folks keeping the sleepers safe! Thanks drivers J After a quick pit stop for some starbucks fuel we headed to the harbor to load up. Everything miraculously got put in a cooler/box/plastic bag and hauled onto the boat so we could leave for Santa Cruz Island! The boat ride was a little over an hour and we saw SO MANY FREAKING BIRDS! And a pod of common dolphins working together on a bait ball.
Upon arrival to the island we loaded up all our gear in these funny old school trucks to get to the research station. Not 2 minutes after starting the drive we saw an island fox! WOW! On the ride over I could feel our excitement building…..Jepson’s nearly jumping out of our packs. But really, so many endemic plants! After settling in we took a short and slow (mountain time) stroll towards Sherwood forest where we took 2+ hours to cover 150 yards. But we couldn’t help it! There’s just so much to see! And it’s just getting started here.
Author: Amanda
22 April 2016: Funky Friday
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CA: Santa BARBara Co: NChi: Santa Cruz Island: Hike to Coches Prietas
Funky friday was a success…as usual! Steve took us over the north facing slope and down its south facing slope for a swim at Coches Prietas Beach. Along the way we stopped on the road to enjoy the view of the island. There are so many grooves and tiny hills (mountains). We saw many new flowers, but most of us were on the hunt for the Calochortus, sadly nobody found it by the end of the day.
When we got to the top of the ridge, we all noticed we were standing on a beehive, UNDERGROUND! Quickly stumbling off the darker soil, we dropped to our knees to exam the black bees pushing their large bodies out of the dirt to fly away. After observing long enough to understand that the bees live solitary, but in close proximity to one another, like neighbors. Continuing on our way to the beach, we were told to off trail down the steep south facing slope by Steve to hit the main road to the beach.
Amanda and I booked it to the beach by running down the slope like mountain goats in order to jump into the perfect ocean water. When everyone made it to the beach, everyone was either sun bathing, swimming or observing the beach. The three hours we spent out at the beach was greatly enjoyed and appreciated by all. Three amazing presentations by Corey, Christian, and Amanda/Ryan. An Elephant Seal beached itself in front of Tessa and Lupita, they named her Barb. We saw many invertebrates and birds, including a very lost Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. This bird is typically only found in Texas, but seen by a handful of students on the island! It was a life bird for some of us which is very cool! After tracking back to the reserve, we all got some down time. It was a great, tiring, and eventful day. This island is proving to be one of a kind.
Author: Teague
23 April 2016: Cascada
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CA: Santa Barbara Co: N Chi: Santa Cruz Island: Fennel Patch- Cascada
Today was calmer and more relaxed than yesterday. After breakfast we hiked about 100 yards east and stopped in front of the Natural History Field Quarter fennel plot to listen to presentations. We then began a 1 ½ mile naturalizing hike to a “secret spot”. We walked west and stopped to look at Eriogonum arborecene, the endemic buckwheat After a short hike we came across the oak hybrid Quercus xmcdonaldii. It was a cross between the Valley Oak and the Coastal Scrub Oak.
We walked along the wash for a while and finally come to the swimming hole : a dammed up waterfall called Cascada. The pool was about 45 feet by 15 feet and probably 10 feet deep with a variety of water plants and a soft green color. Amongst the rocks was a barn swallow nest and in the crevice was a pair of Pacific Chorus frogs mating! We stayed at the watering hole for a couple hours, then headed back just in time for dinner…
Author: Gabriel Santana
24 April 2016: The West Edge
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CA: Santa Barbara Co: N Chi: Santa Cruz Island: Headed West- Christy’s Ranch
We have just arrived to Christy’s Ranch and it is windy and eerie – but beautiful. There are countless of treasures on the windowsill of the patio outside overlooking the ocean. The house we are staying in is 2 stories and it is painted white with a yellow trim. The house was built in the late 1880s. Upstairs is empty with 4 rooms, I wonder why not upkeep the upstairs if the downstairs is clean and functional. Once we got here we set up our homes for the next 3 days and then we were given the option of going to the beach, following the creek, staying in to journal, or to just do whatever you choose. I chose to stay and journal because our days have been so exciting and tiring that by the end of the day I can’t wait to fall asleep.
Author: Lupita Solano
25 April 2016: Fraser Point
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CA: Santa Barbara Co: N Chi: Santa Cruz Island: Fraser Point
Waking up to our first morning at Christy Ranch was filled with tired faces and stories of a sleepless night. The wind has not let up since we’ve arrived. Our tents thrashed like sails in storm all through the night. Today we headed north up the west coast about 5 miles to spend the day at Fraser Point. Liz and Edeli started us off with presentations about the Argentine ant and the SCI grasslands.
Then we bundled up in jackets, layers, beanies and sleeping bags to board our caravan of safari trucks. The road to Fraser Point is long and windy. We made a few stops along the way. The first stop we got out of the trucks to study a slope of perennial bunch grass and calochortus. The wind raged on and the allergies made their attack.
We continued on to our next stop at a forest of magically strange truffula trees! The once Coreopsis is now Leptosyne gigantea. We marveled and carried on. We arrived on the flat, open plains of Fraser Point around noon. The wind gusted so hard you could lean into it and be held. We found refuge on a beach to eat lunch. The beach faced south, looking back at Christy Ranch across the white-capped waters. After lunch and Sam’s presentation on rocky intertidal zone ecology, the group was given the next several hours to discover various areas of Fraser Point. The points of exploration included: the rocky shoreline, sea birding, walking out to the end of the point to greet nearly 50mph winds, burying one’s face in endemic dudleya and visiting the remains of a Chumash village. The powerful winds today demonstrated to us Mother Nature’s force and the determination of life that seeks to strive among the elements.
Author: Danielle Mingo
26 April 2016: Diablo Peak
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CA: Santa Barbara Co: N ChI: Santa Cruz Island: Back to the field station
After breakfast, we packed up our things to leave the perpetually windy Christy’s Ranch and said our farewells to our ectoplasmic neighbor Cynthia. Max excitedly announced a black widow sighting in the bathroom and we set out to return to the UC Reserve Cabin in the trucks.
Just as we were leaving, one of the truck’s tires blew, and Steve and the fam promptly stepped out, got down and replaced it. We continued on our way to a place called Diablo’s Peak, up untended cliff-hanging roads, ascending to what we were told is the highest peak on the island.
Once we were relatively close, we stopped the trucks ~¾ of a mile down from the peak and walked across the road and down a slope to Lagunitas Secos (“small dry lakes”). The hillside here was densely blanketed with bracken ferns and wild grasses. Steve stopped us here and warmly recalled the narrative of his early adult life, the formation of his identity as an agroecologist, and the significance of Lagunitas Secos in shaping the trajectory of his life. Then, after wading through the dry lake of bracken fern, we explored a Chumash midden in an open field of red brome and a representative-of-the-island stand of old growth oaks.
Author: Daniel Pate
27 April 2016: Adopt An Endemic
CA: Santa Barbara Co: NChI: Santa Cruz Island: Around the field station
Today was a more relaxed day at the base camp cabin, where we focused on observing island ecology and evolution on a small scale. It was called “Adopt an Endemic Day”! We spent the morning reviewing and discussing natural selection and evolution patterns, and were set free to find an endemic and “follow” it the rest of the day. Some people walked up the ridge and some explored the wash, but we all got the opportunity to REALLY observe an organism, think about how it got to the island, and how it’s different/diverged from the mainland. In the evening, Lyndal came to camp and shared some old photos of the islands to show how they have changed over the years. We all sit together and marvel in the beauty of this place, even though it has had many years of human influence and interference. It’s the perfect ending to a day spent contemplating the variation and transformation of life.
Author: Lily Urman
