Bird Spotlight! Brandt's Cormorants in Breeding Plumage - Natural Bridges State Beach Santa Cruz California April 2025

One of the main reasons I wanted to go to Santa Cruz was to see the beautiful Brandt's Cormorants on the colony atop the Natural Bridge!  

It was the beginning of breeding season and I was excited to see these birds in their beautiful breeding plumage.  Brandt's are black birds with electric blue gular patches to match their beautiful blue eyes so of course I wanted to see them relatively close up and try to get some photos.

I was successful and yet, unsuccessful due to hard winds and camera shake. It's so frustrating as I get older.  But luckily Topaz AI is able to help with my shaky photos without looking too artificial (I hope). 

So, after my wonderful morning at the University of California Santa Cruz Arboretum and Botanical Garden and a brief stop at my hotel which is right on the way, I made my way to Natural Bridges State Beach to check it out!

There is a parking lot dedicated to parking for viewing the Natural Bridge rock where the colony is. Time limit (I think 30 minutes?) so you can't park for the beach there. But it was perfect to back right up to where the rock is and pop open my rear door for easy access to my camera and a place to sit. 

 You feel so close to the birds and the ocean and beach is beautiful.   

Nikon D600 Nikkor 28-300 lens at 28 mm

The rest of the photos were taken at 600 mm and then cropped, at least a little and some a lot, in Lightroom and Photoshop.  

These California Gulls wanted their photo taken.  :)  But the rest of the photos are of the Brandt's Cormorants.  It's possible there are some Double-crested Cormorants in the colony too.  

And there some Brown Pelicans hanging out too!

This next one has a pretty good look at the nests which are built upon the ground out of seaweed, eelgrass, weeds, etc.  It was very cool to see birds flying to the rock carrying nesting materials. 

This bird looks like it has a red eye but it is part of the seaweed it's carrying to the colony. 

These guys are bringing fresh nesting material. 

I think it looks kind of cool that you can see the people across the cove on the tidepool shelves.  I went over there later but didn't see any tide pools such as I'm used to...even though it was low tide.  But supposedly Natural Bridges has good tide pools so I guess I just couldn't find them.  

Reliving this adventure through my photographs reminds me that I need to make another trip to see the chicks!  Hopefully I can fit that in.  

xoxo

Nikon D7200  Sigma Contemporary 150 - 600 Lens

Photos edited in Lightroom, Topaz Photo AI, and Photoshop