Hey All,
We’re getting started with another exciting nesting season here on the islands. Our 4 new seasonal ‘Nest Searchers’ have all been to Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa, and we’re already starting to see some interesting things.
Last week I was on Santa Rosa Island with 2 new crew members (Cedrick and Ingrid). As I’m sure some of you recall, last season we watched A-08 (2002 release) and A-22 (2004 release) spend lots of time together on the northwest shore of Santa Rosa. Well, it looks like they’re still together and once again we have high hopes that this will be the year they decide to build a nest. 
Last year we may have been a little ‘over-optimistic’, considering A-22 was then only a 3 year old. What a difference a year can make; she’s matured a lot over the past several months, and her head and tail are now almost completely white (the picture is from last winter - A-22 is the bird to the left). It’s also much more common for a 4 year old eagle to attempt nesting (both K-26 and A-04 were 4 years old when they first laid eggs). Anyhow, we’ll be keeping a close eye on this pair and we’ll let you know as soon as we see any nesting activity.
As for other possible nesting pairs this year; we’ll be looking for A-00 and A-16 on the north side of Santa Cruz, A-02 and her partner (A-28 maybe?) on the west end of Cruz, A-21 and A-11 on the east end of Cruz, and A-17 and possibly A-33 on Cruz or Rosa. We’re also not going to forget about A-04 and K-11 – a.k.a ‘The Grassland Pair’, on the south side of Cruz, and of course K-10 and K-26 . . . but you all can keep an eye on that nest, so we can concentrate on finding new pairs.
Anyway, that pretty much sums up what we’ll be doing for the next 4 months. We’ll be starting weekly updates again, and hopefully we’ll have the new crew members making contributions. As most of you know, VCOE and IWS have been working on improving the PH camera system for several weeks now, and with the possibility of new nests on Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa, as well as several new nest-cams on Catalina, we’re expecting this to be a pretty exciting year.
Dave Rempel
IWS
Last year we may have been a little ‘over-optimistic’, considering A-22 was then only a 3 year old. What a difference a year can make; she’s matured a lot over the past several months, and her head and tail are now almost completely white (the picture is from last winter - A-22 is the bird to the left). It’s also much more common for a 4 year old eagle to attempt nesting (both K-26 and A-04 were 4 years old when they first laid eggs). Anyhow, we’ll be keeping a close eye on this pair and we’ll let you know as soon as we see any nesting activity.