Channel Islands Harbor

What Wildlife can you find at Channel Islands Harbor?

From the smallest insects to powerful marine mammals, Channel Islands Harbor is a thriving ecosystem. Our marine safari tours celebrate this diversity, offering an up-close look at wildlife in its natural home—where we coexist as guests, not owners.

Join us for an unforgettable journey. Below are just a few of the species that make the harbor their home.

Birds

Mammals

Insects

Trees/Plants

Birds

Photos shot from Channel Islands Marine Safari Adventures, by Captain Dave. Information about animals sourced from The Channel Islands National Parks

Brown pelicans weigh about 8 pounds and measure a little over 4 feet in length, with a wingspan of over 6.5 feet. The 6 subspecies of brown pelican are similar in appearance with slight differences particularly in breeding plumage. Sexes look similar, though males are slightly larger.

California Brown Pelican

(Pelecanus Occidenralis)

This seabird was classified as federally endangered in 1970 and as endangered by the state of California in 1971, but was delisted as a federally listed species in 2009. The only breeding colonies of California brown pelicans in the western United States are within Channel Islands National Park on West Anacapa and Santa Barbara islands. The preservation of this essential habitat along with the monitoring of this species is critical for the continued health of the California brown pelican population.

Quick and Cool Facts

Breeding range is from the Channel Islands south to central Mexico.
The only breeding colonies of California brown pelicans in the western United States are on West Anacapa and Santa Barbara Islands.
The non-breeding range extends north to Vancouver, Canada.
Brown pelicans build large nest structures on the ground, in trees, or on vegetation.
The nesting season can extend from January through October.
Brown pelicans normally lay three eggs and the adults share incubation duties.
Brown pelicans can dive from 60 feet in the air.
Brown pelicans can live up to 40 years old.
A pelican’s throat pouch can hold over 2 gallons of water.

Double-Crested Cormorants weigh from 3.3 to 6.6 pounds and measure 33 inches in length, with a wingspan of about four feet. Sexes look similar, with short, dark legs, a long body and neck, a lighter colored bill with a hooked tip, bare orange skin around the face and chin. Breeding adults have brilliant turquoise eyes and mouth lining. A small curled plume on either side of the crown may be seen during the breeding season. The long neck is kinked in flight. Because their feathers are not waterproof, they often spread their soaked wings out to dry after a dive. This incomplete waterproofing helps reduce buoyancy, a valuable attribute for a diving bird.

Double-Crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax Auritum)

The double-crested cormorant is the most numerous and widespread North American cormorant, although this bird is listed as a species of special concern by the California Department of Fish and Game. Owing to the isolation of Channel Islands National Park, this bird is provided with the protected breeding area of Santa Barbara Island, and especially Prince Island off the northeast coast and Castle Rock off the northwest coast of San Miguel Island. Anacapa Island also has established breeding colonies

Quick and Cool Facts

Double-crested cormorants are the most numerous and widely distributed species of the six North American cormorants.
Their range extends from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska down to Mexico.
Like other cormorants, their feathers are not waterproof and they need to dry their wings after spending time in the water.
During the breeding season, the skin on their throat turns bright orange.
Double-crested cormorants nest in a variety of places: on the ground, cliff edges, trees, shrubs, and in artificial structures.
Double-crested cormorants make a bulky nest of sticks and other material. They frequently picks up junk, such as rope, deflated balloons, fishnet, and plastic debris to incorporate into the nest. Parts of dead birds are commonly used too.
Females on average lay four eggs. Large pebbles are occasionally found in cormorant nests, and the cormorants treat them as eggs.
Incubating adults hold the eggs on their feet.
Double-crested cormorant nests often are exposed to direct sun. Adults shade the chicks and also bring them water, pouring it from their mouths into those of the chicks.
They are gregarious birds usually found in colonies. In breeding colonies where the nests are placed on the ground, young cormorants leave their nests and congregate into groups with other youngsters (creches). They return to their own nests to be fed.

The Great Blue Heron will stand still or stalk prey in shallow water. They are often found a long The rock abatements of Channel Islands Harbor, or on the docks. They will reside in familiar areas. We have 2 Great Blue Herons, which have been named by Adventurers as “Bluey”, and “Blue-Cheese”. There’s Herons are often spotted in the Seabridge area (North end of Channel Islands Harbor).

Also, look for the Great Blue Heron to be posted on top of roofs of harbor homes, or in the tall trees that line the banks of the harbor.

Great Blue Heron

(Ardea Herodias)

Great blue herons are the largest herons in North America.

They are carnivorous birds that eat a wide variety of small animals including fish, frogs, and various small mammals. They forage by standing still in the water and using their long, sharp beaks to spear animals that swim. They can forage on dry land as well.

Great blue herons will nest in colonies, building their nests anywhere from 20 to 60 feet off the ground. Males will collect materials for the nest while females build the nest. Both parents will incubate the egg and feed chicks once the eggs have hatched. The parents will feed the chicks by regurgitating the food they’ve caught. Great blue heron chicks are able to fly about two months after hatching and will leave the nest two to three months after hatching.

Quick and Cool Facts

The feathers on a great blue heron’s chest will fray into a powder as they grow, and this powder is used by great blue herons to clean oil and dirt off their beaks and feathers.
In order to cool their body temperature, great blue herons will partially extend and droop their wings and open their mouths while fluttering their throat muscles. Much like dogs panting, this helps cool their body through evaporation. This behavior is called gular fluttering.

Adults are short-necked, short-legged, and stout herons with a primarily brown or grey plumage and in most, a black crown. Young birds are brown, flecked with white.

Black Crowned Night Heron (Nycticorax Nycticorax)

Quick and Cool Facts

- Black-crowned Night Herons nest colonially and behave socially all year long. Both males and females vigorously defend feeding and nesting territories, sometimes striking with their bills and grabbing each other’s bills or wings. This species is probably monogamous.
- The night heron has a stocky body, with a comparatively short neck and legs. The adult has distinctive coloring, with black head and upper back, gray wings, rump and tail, and white to pale gray underparts. The bill is stout and black, and the eyes are red.

Green herons are one of the few species of bird known to use tools. In particular, they commonly use bread crusts, insects, or other items as bait. The bait is dropped onto the surface of a body of water to lure fish. When a fish takes the bait, the green heron then grabs and eats the fish.

Green Heron

(Butorides Virescens)

Quick and Cool Facts

The green heron is relatively small; adult body length is about 44 cm (17 in). The neck is often pulled in tight against the body. Adults have a glossy, greenish-black cap, a greenish back and wings that are grey-black grading into green or blue, a chestnut neck with a white line down the front, grey underparts and short yellow legs. The bill is dark with a long, sharp point.
Female adults tend to be smaller than males, and have duller and lighter plumage, particularly in the breeding season. Juveniles are duller, with the head sides, neck and underparts streaked brown and white, tan-splotched back and wing coverts, and greenish-yellow legs and bill.
The green heron’s call is a loud and sudden kyow; it also makes a series of more subdued kuk calls. During courtship, the male gives a raah-rahh call with wide-open bill, makes noisy wingbeats and whoom-whoom-whoom calls in flight, and sometimes calls roo-roo to the female before landing again. While sitting, an aaroo-aaroo courtship call is also given.

Quick and Cool Facts

The Great Egret has an average lifespan of about 15 years in the wild, though some banded individuals have lived over 22 years, and they can live around 22 years in captivity.
Their life expectancy depends on factors like food availability, predation, and human impact, with their numbers increasing due to conservation efforts .

Great Egret

(Ardea Alba)

Great Egret is defined by its black long slender legs and yellow bill.

Great Egrets are patient, solitary hunters that wade slowly or stand still in shallow water, using a quick, powerful stab with their bill to catch fish, amphibians, insects, and even small mammals. While they hunt alone, they are highly social, nesting and roosting in large, often mixed-species colonies, with males fiercely defending their nest sites during the breeding season, involving elaborate courtship displays and cooperative nest building. They are graceful flyers, often soaring, and exhibit behaviors like preening, bathing, and sometimes robbing other birds for food.

Method: Primarily wade slowly or stand motionless in wetlands, then strike prey with their long neck and bill. Can also swim, hover, or dive occasionally.
Diet: Diverse, including fish, frogs, snakes, small mammals, crustaceans, and insects.
Efficiency: Not highly efficient hunters, but they are opportunistic.
Social Hunting: May follow other animals or use them to locate food.

Colonial: Nest and roost in large colonies, often with other wading birds.
Territorial: Males fiercely defend large territories around their nest site, but must reduce it as more birds join the colony.
Courtship: Males perform elaborate visual displays (like the “snap display”) to attract mates.
Nesting: Build stick nests high in trees, usually over water; both parents incubate eggs and feed chicks.
Chicks: Very competitive, with the strongest often outcompeting siblings.

Snowy Egret is defined by its white plumage, black legs, and bright yellow feet.

Among the most elegant of the herons, the slender Snowy Egret sets off immaculate white plumage with black legs and brilliant yellow feet. Those feet seem to play a role in stirring up or herding small aquatic animals as the egret forages. Breeding Snowy Egrets grow filmy, curving plumes that once fetched astronomical prices in the fashion industry, endangering the species. Early conservationists rallied to protect egrets by the early twentieth century, and this species is once again a common sight in shallow coastal wetlands.

Snowy Egret

(Pelecaniformes Ardeidae)

Quick and Cool Facts

- Male and female Snowy Egrets take turns incubating their eggs. As one mate takes over for the other, it sometimes presents a stick, almost as if passing a baton. Both parents continue caring for the young when they hatch.
- During the breeding season, adult Snowy Egrets develop long, wispy feathers on their backs, necks, and heads. In 1886 these plumes were valued at $32 per ounce, which was twice the price of gold at the time. Plume-hunting for the fashion industry killed many Snowy Egrets and other birds until reforms were passed in the early twentieth century. The recovery of shorebird populations through the work of concerned citizens was an early triumph and helped give birth to the conservation movement.
- Adult Snowy Egrets have greenish-yellow feet for most of the year, but at the height of the breeding season their feet take on a much richer, orange-yellow hue. The bare skin on their face also changes color, from yellow to reddish.
- Snowy Egrets sometimes mate with other heron species and produce hybrid offspring. They have been known to hybridize with Tricolored Herons, Little Blue Herons, and Cattle Egrets.
- The oldest Snowy Egret on record was at least 17 years, 7 months old. It was banded in Colorado in 1970 and found in Mexico in 1988.

The Royal The Royal Tern is a sleek seabird of warm saltwater coasts, the Royal Tern lives up to its regal name with a tangerine-colored bill and ragged, ink-black crest against crisp white plumage. Royal Terns fly gracefully and slowly along coastlines, diving for small fish, which they capture with a swift strike of their daggerlike bills. They are social birds, gathering between fishing expeditions on undisturbed beaches and nesting in dense, boisterous colonies. In late summer and fall, Royal Terns lose most of their black crest and sport a white forehead..

Royal Tern

(Charadriformes Laridae)

Quick and Cool Facts

- In Southern California in the early 1950s, populations of the Pacific sardine crashed while northern anchovy numbers boomed. The area’s abundant Royal Terns, which fed heavily on the sardine, became quite rare. However, the smaller Elegant Tern, which had been rare, suddenly became abundant and has remained so through the present. Royal Terns have slowly increased to about three dozen pairs in Southern California, most in San Diego County (as of 2019).
- Royal Tern chicks leave the nest scrape within one day after hatching and congregate in a group known as a crèche (“nursery”), which can contain thousands of chicks ranging in age from 2–35 days old. Each Royal Tern parent feeds only its own chick, finding it in the crowd probably by recognizing its call.
- Like many tern species, Royal Terns in their colonies perform a group behavior that is called a “dread” or a “panic.” Virtually all the breeding birds in the colony rise up slowly and fly together in silence over the colony site for up to 20 minutes. These flights typically happen early during colony formation, but it’s not known why. Normally, Royal Tern colonies are very noisy places, even at night.
- The Royal Tern makes its nest scrape on the ground of low-lying islands. The pair defecates directly on the nest rim, perhaps to reinforce the nest against flooding. After a few weeks, the nest rim hardens.
- The oldest recorded Royal Tern was at least 30 years, 6 months old when it was found in Belize in 2013. It had been banded in North Carolina in 1983.

Mallards usually form pairs (in October and November in the Northern Hemisphere) until the female lays eggs at the start of the nesting season, which is around the beginning of spring. At this time she is left by the male who joins up with other males to await the moulting period, which begins in June.

Mallard

(Anas Platyrhynchos)

Quick and Cool Facts

- Males (drakes) have green heads, while the females (hens) have mainly brown-speckled plumage. Both sexes have an area of white-bordered black or iridescent purple or blue feathers called a speculum on their wings; males especially tend to have blue speculum feathers. The mallard is 20–26 in long, of which the body makes up around two-thirds the length. The wingspan is 32–39.
- The mallard usually feeds by dabbling for plant food or grazing;

The adult Black Oystercatcher is a large shorebird with a black head and body; large red bill; stout, dull pink legs; and yellow eyes, with surrounding ring of red skin. Juvenile Black Oystercatchers are similar in appearance to adults; however, they may have somewhat browner plumage, a dark tip on the bill, and their bare parts may be slightly duller.

Black Oystercatcher

(Haematopus Bachmani)

Quick and Cool Facts

- Key Characteristics & Behavior
  - Habitat: Rocky coasts, jetties, and areas with mussel beds; avoids sandy beaches.
  - Diet: Uses its strong bill to pry open mussels, clams, and other intertidal invertebrates.
  - Appearance: All black/dark brown body with a striking red-orange bill and yellow eye.
  - Sound: Loud, distinctive calls that cut through crashing waves.
  - Nesting: Creates simple nests (scrapes) lined with pebbles and shells on rocky shores.
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The Western Gull (Larus occidentalis) is a large, common gull of the Southern California coast, easily identified by its dark gray back, white head, pink legs, and yellow bill with a red spot, a target for chicks. Resident year-round, they are especially abundant around the Channel Islands, where they nest on islands and headlands, feeding on marine life, carrion, and even human trash. A southern subspecies, L. o. wymani, is darker and has paler eyes than its northern counterpart, with the species taking about four years to reach adult plumage.

Western Gull

(Larus Occidentalis)

Quick and Cool Facts

- - - Size: Bigger than California Gulls, taking several years to develop full adult coloring.
    - Habitat: Strictly coastal, found on beaches, cliffs, bays, and particularly numerous in the Channel Islands.
    - Diet: Opportunistic feeders, eating fish, invertebrates, eggs, carrion, and garbage.
    - Behavior: Bold and adaptable, often seen near fishing boats and landfills, following marine mammals, and nesting on islands, piers, and even urban areas.
  Southern California Specifics
  - - - Subspecies: The southern subspecies (wymani) is found from central to southern California, noted for its darker mantle (back).
      - Abundance: The most common breeding seabird in the Channel Islands.
      - Non-migratory: They stay in their coastal range year-round and do not migrate.
  Identification Tips
  - - Look for the dark back and pink legs, differentiating it from paler-backed gulls like the California Gull.
    - Remember the red spot on the bill (gonydeal spot) is a key feature, especially for chicks.
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Wildlife

Channel Islands Harbor

Adults are short-necked, short-legged, and stout herons with a primarily brown or grey plumage and in most, a black crown. Young birds are brown, flecked with white.

Green herons are one of the few species of bird known to use tools. In particular, they commonly use bread crusts, insects, or other items as bait. The bait is dropped onto the surface of a body of water to lure fish. When a fish takes the bait, the green heron then grabs and eats the fish.

The Great Egret has an average lifespan of about 15 years in the wild, though some banded individuals have lived over 22 years, and they can live around 22 years in captivity.

Their life expectancy depends on factors like food availability, predation, and human impact, with their numbers increasing due to conservation efforts .