January 5: Weed Warriors
The volunteer work party will meet from 9 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.
Third Saturday Walk: January 19, 9:30 a.m. – Oyster Farming in the Estuary
George Trevelyan, owner of Grassy Bar Oyster Co., raises Pacific oysters in the intertidal zone of the Morro Bay estuary's southerly reaches. He calls it a lunar powered farm because it is the tidal rhythm that feeds the oyster reefs with fresh seawater. We'll walk along the Elfin Forest boardwalk and stop occasionally to hear about the science and challenges of oyster farming. We'll also learn why preserving the Elfin Forest and controlling erosion makes a better environment for oyster farming. Don't miss this different and interesting view of forest and estuary. Only heavy rain will cancel.
Coming Up in the Elfin Forest
Bewick's Wren
|
California Towhee
|
Our Central Coast area hosts large populations of wintering birds at this time each year, and the Elfin Forest is at the heart of all this winter birding extravaganza. On Martin Luther King weekend each year, over 450 birders from all over the nation, and even some from overseas, visit our area for the Morro Bay Winter Bird Festival. This year the 17th annual festival will be held from January 18-21. It will feature talks, exhibits, and many field trips all over the county, including our Elfin Forest and pelagic birding tours on the ocean. Check out their website at: Morro Bay Winter Bird Festival.
Brant Geese are feeding on eel grass in the bay. Look also for Canada Geese and diving ducks such as Scaup, Buffleheads, and Ruddy Ducks. Dabbling ducks are often easy to identify from Bush Lupine Point or Sierna's View as they dip heads and raise their tails in the shallow water just below. These include Northern Pintails, American Wigeons, Northern Shovelers, Blue-winged Teal, Cinnamon Teal, and Green-winged Teal. Both Brown and White Pelicans are common in the air and on the water. On the bay or the edges of marshes and mud flats bordering the Elfin Forest all five species of grebes may be present, as are Great and Snowy Egrets, American Avocets, Marbled Godwits, Willets, and many other shorebird species.
White Pelicans in Flight
|
Besides water birds, all the raptors and most of the passerines normally seen in our area are also at peak populations in January. The shrubs around the boardwalk can be alive with flitting finches, sparrows, warblers, wrens, bushtits, and many other little brown and little grey birds. Among the larger birds in the brush are phoebes, thrashers, towhees, Scrub Jays, quail, blackbirds, and doves.
California Peony
|
As if the avian wonders were not enough, January also features some of the most beautiful wildflowers in the Elfin Forest year. All around the boardwalk and sand paths buckbrush ceanothus shrubs are covered with their pale lavender to white blossoms. Hummingbirds are thrusting their long bills into the brilliant red flower tubes of fuchsia-flowering gooseberries. Also red are the drooping globes of California peonies. These are less than two inches in diameter on herbaceous plants with leaves unusually large for the Elfin Forest, growing only a foot or so high as they lurk under the shady protection of taller shrubs. The peonies are best seen on the sand trail leading from 11th Street to the boardwalk near Bush Lupine Point or the boardwalk close to Siena's View. This is also the month our own lovely Morro Manzanita comes into full bloom, covered with tiny pinkish white floral bells.
We are so lucky to be able to stroll comfortably on our Elfin Forest boardwalk surrounded by a beautiful flowering landscape with incredibly active bird life in January while most American and Canadian residents are huddled in their houses watching television and longing for their warm spring with its flowers and returning birds, still two or three months away!
