Whats coming up in the Elfin Forest!

1. September 2010 by Jean Wheeler.

What a bountiful display of coastal dudleya we have decorating the Elfin Forest this summer! Their succulent grey leaves are mostly hidden under the shelter of surrounding shrubs and herbs, but their tall pink stalks are showing slightly curved sprays of small bright yellow flowers nearly everywhere I look as I write in mid-July. Although our Pocket Guide gives their blooming period as May through July, they are going so strong on the heavy rains they absorbed last winter and spring that I’m sure the display will continue to be impressive well into August.

Also adding yellow flowers in August and September will be mock heather, already showing many swelling green buds, peak rush rose, and the continuing display of California poppies. The bright red berries of holly leaf cherry shrubs and the yellow, red, and almost black of coffeeberries should add to the show, especially between Bush Lupine Point and Siena’s View.

Expect lots of white flowers near the boardwalk too, blooming on shrubs such as California sagebrush, dune buckwheat, coyote brush, chamise, and (closer to the ground) on California croton. Pink flowers to look for in these months are pink everlastings, California asters, and California hedge nettles.

Reptiles are especially active in the warmth of summer. Western fence lizards pause to do their pushups along the boardwalk, and you may be lucky enough to see one of our snakes, none of which is poisonous. Coyotes are occasionally seen slipping like ghost dogs through the brush. On morning walks, look for tracks in the sand of our nocturnal visitors; raccoon tracks are especially common.

This is a good time of the year to observe closely our year-round resident birds, undistracted by all those winter visitors and spring and fall transients. Quail scratch and scurry through the underbrush with males occasionally laboring to the top of a shrub to boast their dominance. The blue flash and noisy screams of California scrub jays are everywhere. Plentiful and easy to see are white-crowned and some other sparrows, nearly all of our finches, bushtits, Bewick’s wrens, and Anna’s hummingbirds. Fairly common but harder to see are California and spotted towhees, California thrashers, and wrentits. Also keep an eye out for possible sightings of our summer-only visitors, such as most of our swallows, Swainson’s thrush, the black-headed grosbeak, Wilson’s warbler, and the western tanager.

So come out to the Elfin Forest on a summer’s misty morning or sunny afternoon. Marvel at the abundant and active life displayed by our plants and animals. They are so marvelously adapted to take advantage of our winter rains and still provide a wondrous tapestry of life even in summer’s stressful drought season.

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | Comments Off