Elfin Forest Activities

By Jean Wheeler

When parking near the Elfin Forest while visiting, please avoid blocking driveways or mailboxes.

December 3: Weed Warriors

The volunteer work party will meet from 9:00 am to about noon.  Anyone is welcome to join in and work on projects to restore vegetation and reduce erosion. Wear comfortable shoes, long pants, and sleeves, and park at the north end of 15th Street in Los Osos.

December 17, 9:30 a.m. Third Saturday Walk

What's Underfoot? Soils!  Have you ever heard the term "Baywood Fine Sand?"  It's the name of the predominant soil in Los Osos, as well as in the Elfin Forest.  It's what you walk on when the pavement ends because all of Los Osos was once a series of sand dunes.  Soil scientist Jim Brownell will describe local soils and talk about how important soils are in determining what plants will grow in them.  We'll learn how sandy soil both benefits and stresses plants that grow in Los Osos and the Elfin Forest. This is an excellent walk for gardeners.

Besides docent-led events, visit the Elfin Forest any day to experience the quiet natural beauty of this small wilderness area. Park at the north end of any street from 11th through 17th streets off Santa Ysabel in Los Osos and take a sand path to the boardwalk or the wheel-chair accessible boardwalk entrance at 16th Street.

Coming Up in the Elfin Forest

The Elfin Forest is decorated for December with lots of holiday red and green, and there are also lovely floral ornaments in other colors.  The leaves of the shrubs and elfin-sized live oaks are bright green from autumn rains.  Red ornaments are the fuchsia-flowered gooseberries and California peonies. The peonies are herbaceous plants little more than a foot high growing under the edges of bushes in the dune scrub or maritime chaparral. They have small red flower globes hanging down, not the large mounds with big showy flowers of garden fame. Little bell-like pink and white ornaments dangle from the morro manzanitas while buckbrush ceanothus lines the boardwalk with flowers from white to pale lavender.

Flying ornaments flitting among the shrubs around the boardwalk include finches, sparrows, warblers, wrens, bushtits, and many other little yellow, brown, or gray birds.  Watch for the bright red throats and heads of hummingbirds busily gathering nectar as they pollinate the red tubes of those fuchsia-flowered gooseberries. Among the not-so-little avian ornaments of the brush are phoebes, thrashers, towhees, Scrub Jays, Northern Mockingbirds, quail, blackbirds, and doves.

Virtually all of the water birds and wading birds seen in our area at any time of year reach peak populations here in December, as do all our raptors. From Bush Lupine Point or Siena's View you can use your binoculars (perhaps a new holiday gift?) to identify mallards, Northern Pintails, Gadwalls, American and Eurasian Wigeons, Northern Shovelers, teal (Blue-winged, Cinnamon, and Green-winged), and scaup among the dabbling ducks.  Or there are the diving birds—including Ring-Necked, Canvasback, Bufflehead, Common Goldeneye, Red-breasted Merganser, and Ruddy Ducks as well as Horned, Eared, Pied-billed, Western and Clark's Grebes.  The large geese with black heads and necks are called Brant, and a few thousand winter on Morro Bay after breeding in the Arctic.  Birds that can be seen wading along the shore include sandpipers, dowitchers, Long-billed Curlews, Marbled Godwits, and American Avocets.

So besides enjoying holiday decorations in and around homes and stores, take a walk around the Elfin Forest to enjoy nature's beautifully decorated and lively small wilderness area.

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Photo of Jean by Ron Ascher.
Unless otherwise attributed, all other photos, including the Spotted Towhee banner image, are taken by Jean.