If you look at a map of California, you will notice that the coast performs a right angle turn from east-west to north-south in Santa Barbara county. The location where the right angle turn occurs is Point Conception. I live along the "south coast", which is the east-west running section. This section of the coast is protected from the prevailing NW winds by the Santa Ynez Mountains and the coastal waters are relatively warmer, although still usually requiring a wetsuit. The "north coast" has colder waters immediately offshore and is much colder, windier and foggier. Unsurprisingly, this leads to some ecological differences. From a bird perspective, the most obvious is the relative abundance of alcids off the north coast compared to the south coast. The cooler, foggier conditions also enable a number of more northerly butterflies species to occur.
On July 23, I headed up to the north coast with Hugh Ranson, who generously provided the photos for this post. The main purpose was to locate a Common Wood-Nymph butterfly, which Hugh had never seen in the county. A small localized population was discovered about 15 years previously, 200 miles south of the nearest population to the north along the coast in Santa Cruz county. A few days earlier, I had been doing a raptor survey up in Miguelito Canyon near Lompoc and had come across a couple of wood-nymphs. Although we could not visit that area as it was private land, the location I had seen them was only a mile or so away from a small colony I had found some years ago and it seem reasonable that they would be flying there.
Upon arrival, we initially spent some time looking along the roadside for butterflies of interest. We found nothing but did get a pretty close up view of a SpaceX rocket launch from nearby Vandenberg Space Force Base. As we watched it disappearing high into the sky, we saw the launch vehicle detach for its descent back to earth. The SpaceX launch vehicle is reusable and comes back into land by the launchpad. The final stage of the descent is marked by a sonic boom and although I warned Hugh it was coming, we still both practically jumped out of our skins when it happened!
We headed to the location for the wood-nymph. Due to cattle grazing down the long-grass, the habitat is more limited than formerly, but we quickly found a wood-nymph flitting along the poison-oak infested boundary between oak woodland and a grassy area. However, it proved uncooperative and we were not able to get a decent look despite hanging around for 15 minutes or more. A Satyr Comma provided some interest along with a few "Wornful" Duskywings that were too tatty to identify.
We then headed up a track hoping to find some more suitable habitat on the far side of the oak trees. There we came across another wood-nymph, which this time posed for good looks and photos, confirming it was a Common Wood-Nymph rather than a Great Basin Wood-Nymph, which occurs a little higher in the Santa Ynez Mountains.
Further checking of the site turned up a couple of patches of blooming thistles that were attracting Pale and Western Tiger Swallowtail, Woodland Skipper, American Lady and Callippe Fritillary. The latter were very late and unsurprisingly very worn.
Originally we had planned to head out on the Jalama Road to look for wood-nymphs there. There is a lot of suitable looking habitat along there and plenty of cool, foggy weather. However, the previous day a report of one in that area had popped up on iNaturalist, indicating that the species did indeed occur out there, Deprived of our chance of a ground-breaking discovery, I suggested we try the Burton Mesa Ecological Preserve. This is a location for an undescribed taxon of Square-spotted Blue that at one time was thought to be an isolated population of the El Segundo Blue.
Since neither of us had visited this location before, Hugh called up our friend Mark Bright. Mark helpfully jumped on to Califlora to locate records of Seacliff Buckwheat, the blue's host plant, and directed us to an area we should be able to find some. On arrival, we immediately saw some buckwheats and started checking them for the blue.
The first butterflies we located were "Mormon" Metalmarks. The ones in the Lompoc area are another undescribed taxon and are darker than the forms than fly in the mountain ranges of Santa Barbara County. After encountering several of these, Hugh miraculously spotted a small butterfly on a buckwheat some 10 yards away that transpired to be a female Square-Spotted Blue. She was very cooperative and Hugh was able to get several good shots. This was the only individual we could find in about 45 minutes of searching and given her worn appearance and the fact that female butterflies tend to fly later than males, I suspect we were at the tail end of the flight period. The only other butterfly we saw was a Hedgerow Hairstreak. I was surprised that this species was still flying so late at this low elevation but perhaps the foggy weather results in later emergences here.
After a quick Walmart stop for cheap groceries, we headed over to Ocean Park at the mouth of the Santa Ynez River. This is the largest estuary in the county although not tidal this summer due to the low rainfall of the previous winter. I was hoping that there would be some Least Terns present as pairs from the nearby colony on Vandenberg Space Force Base often bring their fledged young here to teach them to fish at this time of year. However, there were none present and most of our time was spent scrutinizing a flock of almost 300 Western Sandpipers, hoping for something rarer. However, there were just a few other species of common shorebirds present. Returning to my vehicle, I put my optics away. This was a cue for Hugh to find a juvenile Black Tern hawking over a nearby channel in the marsh. This is a rare bird in the county, with perhaps just one every three years. In about a dozen years of frequent visits to this location, I had only ever found Black Tern in one year, when two were present for some time in late July and early August.
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