Muhu Tasen, Quatal Canyon, Santa Barbara County, CA

Muhu Tasen (Chumash: Red Owl), a Native American camp and sweat lodge with ceremonial grounds.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa2B-uMvDUA

Muhu Tasen is supported by Sacred Indigenous Preservation, an organization focused on the protection of sites where regularly scheduled indigenous North American ceremonies (i.e., Sweat Lodges, Vision Quests and Bear Ceremonies) are conducted and where the practice of these ceremonies is threatened.

Quatal Canyon (Forest Road #9N09):
Wide, flat and smooth at the beginning, this 18 mile scenic dirt road, is well signed at Hwy 33 & mostly graded. Quatal Canyon connects Ojai’s Highway 33 to the pinyon pine forest above near Pine Mountain Club .

Quatal Canyon (possibly named after a Chumash warrior) is a giant high desert wash, ripping down from Cerro Noroeste (aka Mt Abel). Serious erosion w/ San Andreas fault lines – make it a very interesting canyon to explore on foot, horseback and is popular with mountain bikers, motorcycle dirt bikers & off-roaders.

The high desert terrain is pinyon forest, with yucca & manzanita. The eroded cliffs of red rock, white & orange hues, glow best during the clearest sunsets. You will almost think your in Utah, until you get up on a ridge & see the smog in the Central Valley of California.

© All Rights Reserved

Long-billed Curlew, male, Morro Strand State Beach,
Morro Bay, CA

Taken on September 9, 2021 (uploaded 9/12/21)

My fourth encounter with Dozer since July 12, 2021.

Showing Dozer being followed by female Long-billed Curlew and resting at the edge of a large flock of Elegant Terns.

Research Biologist Heather Hayes comments:
"Your video is of a beautiful female (has longer bill) that was following him- what a change to see a male run from a female because here on the breeding territory, the advances of the males have some females turning for a nip at them and a sprint in the opposite direction, lol!! Our boy Dozer appears pretty faithful while apart from his mate Mimi 💕"
_____________________________________
MV DOZER is the satellite-tagged Long-billed Curlew from Idaho, who, with his buddy Neil, were the first-ever curlews from the Intermountain Bird Observatory’s Curlew Project to migrate directly from Idaho to the Central Coast in 2020 and spent nine months here (June 21, 2020 - March 21, 2021).

Dozer returned to the Central Coast in 2021!

On July 12, 2021 Dozer was at Morro Strand State Beach, in the dry sand in front of the Alva Paul Creek mouth/lagoon.

Sadly, Neil died this spring. When he was in the Morro Bay area, he liked to alternate between the sand-spit and the bay.

Carol Comeau, a local volunteer curlew tracker, had traced DOZER'S recent route back from Idaho:
-- June 27, 2021- started migration back to coast - went to eastern Oregon
-- June 29, 2021- northern Nevada just off 95 north of Rebel Creek- in agricultural fields
-- July 6, 2021 - near Merced, CA
-- July 8, 2021 - back in Morro Bay

In late June Carol tracked Mimi, Dozer’s mate, first to agricultural fields just east of the Salton Sea, then to Sonora, Mexico. Her wintering grounds in Mexico are roughly 450 miles away, at the Biosphere Reserve of the Upper Gulf of California & Colorado River Delta.

Unlike in 2020, Dozer had a successful nest in 2021 with at least three chicks with his mate Mimi, the latest transmittered Curlew added to the study flock in 2021.

Research Biologist Heather Hayes reports:
“I didn't get a chance to see the chicks, but when I walked out to the nest to check they were mobbing me like crazy which suggests the chicks were on the run:-) There was one unfertilized egg left in the nest cup that appeared to have been predated on. - This makes my heart so happy that he has arrived back in Morro Bay!”

© All Rights Reserved

Iceland Poppy, Keflavík Iceland

The Iceland Poppy is - contradictory to its name - not at all an Icelandic wild plants. It is introduced and generally grows in private gardens and waste places. The color of the flowers vary: they can be white, yellow or orange.

The easiest way to tell this introduced species from the natural arctic poppy is by looking at the leaves: they are hairy in the Arctic poppy but not so in the Iceland poppy. Also the flowers of the Iceland poppy are larger than the arctic poppy. In the wild the Iceland poppy occurs in the sub-polar regions of the European and American continents.

© All Rights Reserved

Courtyard, Harmony, CA

www.harmonyca.com

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmony,_California

© All Rights Reserved

Cave of the Giantess (Female Troll), Gróf Marina, Keflavík, Iceland

"New Home for the Giant Female Troll," from the book "Sigga and the Troll on Reykjanes". ("Sudurnesjum" ="South Peninsula")

Giganta's best friend is Sigga, a young girl, who accidentally ran into her in the mountains and introduced her to other humans. Giganta was so grateful because she often felt lonely in the mountains. The Mayor of Reykjanesbær offered Giganta this cave as her home after she saved a small fishing boat in a bad storm a few years ago. She feels very comfortable in her cave because now she meets so many children and they give her their pacifiers (their most precious things) so sh can decorate her cave with them.
________________________________________________

Giganta in the mountain moved to Reykjanesbær during the family and cultural festival the Night of Lights in 2008 and is now located in Black Cave at the marina in Gróf. There Giganta has been settling in her nice cave with its superb view over the bay of Keflavík and Faxaflói.

Giganta is originally the creation of author Herdís Egilsdóttir who has written 16 stories about the little girl Sigga and her friend Giganta in the mountain. The last one describes her migration to Reykjanesbær. Giganta is in full size and sits sleeping in a rocking chair in the kitchen.

© All Rights Reserved