Grove Milk-Maids
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March 2: 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.
March 16 Walk– Animal Tracks
Meet at 9:30 am at the north end of 15th Street in Los Osos. Join Evan Albright, an animal track expert, in learning who is "tracking up" the Elfin Forest. Evan will demonstrate how to tell the front feet from the back feet of a raccoon, and what the difference is between coyote tracks and dog tracks. Visitors will learn to look for other signs that a wild resident of the Elfin Forest has passed that way, such as hairs on a fence or "scoot" marks where the animal squeezed through a fence hole. This walk will open up a complex world of the Elfin Forest's inhabitants, one that we would never suspect while walking along the boardwalk.
Coming Up in the Elfin Forest
It's March, so March! -- around the Boardwalk to enjoy lingering floral beauties of our mild-winter climate as the flowers of early spring open to join them. Lilac to white clusters of flowers continue to surround the boardwalk on the buckbrush ceanothus (aka California lilac) shrubs. The scenic photo shows them from the Boardwalk, framing the distant Morros. White and pink bell flowers of Morro manzanita shrubs are ripening into the miniature red apples that give this shrub its Spanish name. Prickly-thorned bushes of red fuchsia-flowered gooseberries are at the peak of their bloom, providing a feast for Anna's hummingbirds. Yellow to orange flowers that can be seen include seaside fiddleneck, golden yarrow, seaside golden yarrow, and California poppies. All of these winter blooms and fruits should continue at least into April.
Ceanothus Shrub and Two Morros
Indian Pinks and Lichens Below the Oaks Along the Boardwalk
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Sticky monkey-flowers are already showing yellow blossoms and their leaves will soon be feeding the caterpillars of the variable checkerspot butterfly. The blue flowers of silver bush lupine, for which Bush Lupine Point is named, should begin to come into bloom during March. They will attract Morro blue butterflies for egg laying in May and June. Among other spring wildflowers to look for this month are the white spikes of wedgeleaf horkelia, low white blooms of California croton and popcorn flower, and tall yellow spikes of suffrutescent wallflowers.
Under the oak groves along the lower Boardwalk, look for early red flowers of Indian Pinks, shown among ferns and lichens in the photo taken in the middle of March two years ago. Spikes of white bells called milkmaids are a special beauty of March, requiring a hike off the boardwalk on the Habitat Sand Trail down into the Don Klopfer Grove. They are shown in a photo also taken two years ago, when rains were frequent. There may not be as many this year, but I've seen a few spikes of milkmaids along the trail though the dense oaks just about every year.
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
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March is the month that sees our bird population begin to drop sharply as the many species that winter in our area head northward or up into mountains to their summer breeding grounds. Although large populations of waterbirds head north about this time of year and our bay begins to look deceptively empty, smaller numbers of many duck and wading bird species remain and may be seen on the bay in any month. Passerines departing include Say's Phoebe, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, American Robins, the Hermit Thrush, American Pipits, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and Fox, Lincoln, and Golden-crowned Sparrows.
California Quail
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This is a good month to watch for migrating species passing through from winter havens in Central and South America. Look closely and you may see a rufous or an Allen's hummingbird refueling on Elfin Forest flowers for a few days to a week or two before continuing northward. Also look for the return of species that nest here in our summer but winter in the tropics. All five species of swallows normally leave us in winter but return around March. The departing Hermit Thrush may be replaced by its relative, Swainson's Thrush.
Of course, our resident birds are building or repairing nests and beginning to breed this year's crop of fledglings. Small residents flitting around the bushes gleaning insects include the pictured Blue-gray Gnatchatcher as well as bushtits and various species of warblers, wrens, and sparrows. California Thrashers and the pictured California Quail hide in or scurry below the shrubs most of the time, but may frequently be seen calling from shrub tops in our Elfin Forest at this season.
So enjoy a springtime March on our Elfin Forest boardwalk surrounded by beautiful flowers and noisy flitting birds.
