The Ocean Hitchhiker

I almost titled this blog “Kitty Kat Picks up Hitchhiking Tweety Bird”. But I knew I’d never live it down, even though our fantastic new boat really is named Kitty Kat and even though it’s true that last Sunday an off-course song bird saved its own life by hopping aboard the boat more than 30 miles out to sea to hitch a ride back to land.


We keep telling everyone what a great year it has been, and continues to be, for Humpback Whale sightings, and here we are fussing over a little bird. Read Naturalist Melinda Nakagawa’s account and you’ll see why:



We had a female Red-winged Blackbird fluttering around our boat, about 5-6 miles south of the island. (The island is 27 miles outside the Golden Gate Bridge!) This poor little land bird looked so exhausted as it fluttered back and forth, dipping close to the waves in our wake as it tried to keep up. Skipper Ronnie slowed the boat down to allow our little friend to hop aboard for a ride to the mainland.


Since she is a land bird, her feathers are not waterproof so she cannot land on the water like a gull or a murre, and would surely drown at sea if she didn't make it back to solid ground to rest and eat insects. Our stowaway landed on the roof of the cabin and occasionally fluttered around and landed on the deck around the passengers during the ride home. Fortunately our little friend made it the mainland. The last time we saw her we were about 2-3 miles from the Golden Gate bridge.


Strange as it seems that a bird more likely to be seen at your backyard bird feeder was seen near the Farallones, there is plenty of precedence for such sightings. Visit one of my favorite blogs, PRBO's Los Farallones and check out their October 15, 2006 entry. The resident scientists reported a one day sighting of over a hundred migrating songbirds on or near the Farallones, including a hummingbird, a kingfisher, grosbeaks, a meadowlark, sparrows, warblers, wrens, juncos, red-winged blackbirds, a goldfinch and an owl, among others.


On our SFBay Whale Watching trips we like to point out, as we travel within sight of the PRBO housing on the island (the former 1870's lighthouse keeper's quarters), the two wind sculpted cypress trees alongside the two houses. They are known as the "Farallon Forest", the hardy survivors of many unsuccessful attempts to plant trees on these rocks over the years.


Don't think it's just their grit that inspires admiration; the island's bird biologists find them useful havens for the resting migrant songbirds who, off-course and tired from their detours, can then easily be studied, banded, and released.

Next time I fill that bird feeder I'm going to think twice about the adventures those song birds may have had...

Photos and Text by Kathleen Jacques. (Red-winged Blackbird photo courtesy of Cornell University.)