This Web page will report new bird sightings, ecology and behavior for Catalina Island as discoveries are made by the director and naturalist, volunteers, students and others interested in birds.

The Bald Eagle is doing good on Catalina. There were four nesting pairs set up with several eggs laid, but only one egg survived to hatch back in April. On June 11, this young Bald Eagle left the nest. We saw it not far from where a Blue Whale had washed up on the beach near China Point. This young Bald Eagle comes from parents that also were born on Catalina bringing the restoration process nearly full circle. The final part to complete restoration of Bald Eagles to the Channel Islands may be the most difficult and most expensive too. It involves removing the residual DDT from the Channel off of Palos Verdes, by having a fedrally funded National Superfund Cleanup started. At this time 11 adult Bald Eagles are on Catalina with at least 1 young juvenile Eagle entered and perhaps one or two other "teenager" Bald Eagles that are 2-3 years old here. Keep in mind that it is not until about the fifth year that Bald Eagles develop the ability to nest successfully and become the white-headed/white-tailed Eagle that is our national emblem.

Some nesting notes of birds at the Interpretive Center are very interesting. For example, there are seven nesting pairs of Barn Swallows on the outside of the building. We have just fledged four Swallows from a nest on June 15. About a week earlier, three Swallows fledged from another nest. And, unfortunately, around June 5, an alien Eurasian Starling ate four young Swallows about half-developed. A program is definitely needed on Catalina to remove/reduce Starlings so that the special Island native birds can do better. Starlings arrived on Catalina in about 1967 whereas the native birds have been here thousands of years longer going back in some cases to 10,000+ years ago. The tradition of Swallows coming to Catalina each spring is an ancient tradition. On June 17, four new Barn Swallows hatched and very soon another nest of four Swallows should hatch eggs. The total young Swallows this spring/summer at the Interpretive Center now numbers 19 and its only June. When the second nesting starts in July/August we should be close to raising 40 Barn Swallows. These 40 youngsters will then have to fly 20 miles across the Ocean to the California mainland and then thousands of miles to the tropics in Latin America.

One Pacific Slope Flycatcher nest is at the Interpretive Center. The mom & dad are raising three youngsters. They hatched around June 1st. These young bird also will have to fly thousands of miles to the tropics at the end of summer. There is a long tradition of this endemic island Flycatcher coming to Catalina each spring. I believe that the tradition is ancient and may be over 10,000 years old.

A special kind of Hummingbird known at the endemic subspecies level as the Channel Islands Hummingbird by some and as the Nonmigratory Allen's Hummer by others is now feeding regularly/daily on the rare and endemic native plant known as Island Snapdragon (Gambelia speciosa). This hummer is a special subspecies of the mainlands Allen's Hummingbird. This Island hummer is more special than any mainland hummer in the sense that it truely is able to memorize the geography of specific plants with nectar since they have not migrated off the Island for thousands of years. Being in one specific place, an island in this case, has its advantages to really knowing a landscape (of flowers) really well. The color/size of our Island hummer is richer/larger than on the mainland. Even the larger Anna's Hummingbird of the mainland cannot compete successfully with our Island hummer. Our Island hummer also occurs on San Clemente and Santa Cruz Islands which are south and north of Catalina respectively.

Adult Heermann's Gulls and their young began arriving back on Catalina about June 7th. These gulls are now tired and hungry having just flown about 500 miles from one of a few Islands in Baja California where they nested earlier this spring. From June until next January, we will have the beautiful Heermann's Gull on Catalina. Best seen by kayak from which they will let you approach closely. On June 15, we watched from a kayak, an adult Heermann's Gull juggle a goby-like fish for seven minutes before finally swallowing it. The Gull had caught if from a mussell/anemone tidepool on a barely emerged rock that can only be reached by the fun activity of kayaking. It was truely a "watchable wildlife moment" of pure drama!! I wished that I could have captured on film. I call it: "Pedator gets it prey, or more simply, the bird gets its fish!"

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