VENTURA : Park Rangers Share Tales of Sea Birds

Raising babies can be stressful. Consider the adult Western gull. When chicks want to eat they peck at a red mark on one of their parents’ bills until mom or dad regurgitates a meal.

“It is kind of fun to go out to Anacapa Island and watch them do that,” said Jean Van Tatenhove, a ranger for Channel Islands National Park. “It’s a little gross, but it’s fun too.”

For the adult Xantus Murrelet, chick-rearing includes forcing the young birds to tumble down cliffs on Santa Barbara Island for a life at sea two days after they hatch.

Calling sea birds the last frontier for bird watchers, Van Tatenhove, an ornithologist, told the stories of some of the area’s lesser known sea birds at park headquarters at Ventura Harbor on Sunday. Each month the National Park Service features free lectures on park wildlife. Talks on sea birds will continue through December. In January, rangers will begin discussions on whales to mark the mammals’ migration through the Santa Barbara Channel.

Van Tatenhove displayed five of the 11 birds monitored by rangers, including the endangered brown pelican.

West Anacapa Island serves as the largest breeding colony in the United States for California brown pelicans. Centuries ago Chumash Indians made coats from the pelicans’ finely marked feathers, she said.