Morro Bay Wildlife Spotlight: Monarchs are back!

As the month of November rolls around, the eucalyptus groves in Morro Bay State Park fill with bright orange monarch butterflies. After soaring the windstreams of the world for over 1,000 miles, these butterflies escape the cold temperatures of the Rockies and migrate to the warmer climates of our central California coast. A migration across generations One monarch butterfly alone cannot make this journey. It can take up to five generations of monarchs migrating southwest before they reach our coast. Depending on the time of year, the lifespan of a monarch butterfly varies. During the spring and summer, …

Field Updates October 2018: bioassessment scouting, Pismo Preserve, sharing data, and getting ready for rain

November 9, 2018 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program bioassessment Camp SLO chorro creek eelgrass report erosion estuary program macroinvertebrates macros MBNEP morro bay morro bay eelgrass Pismo preserve sediment monitoring winter storms Blog Posts Field Updates

Fulfilling our mission to protect and restore the Morro Bay estuary for people and wildlife requires a lot of hard work in the field. At the Estuary Program, that often entails doing research, restoration, and monitoring work out on the estuary and along the creeks that feed into it. Read on to see what we’ve been up to during the past month. Scouting a new bioassessment site on Camp SLO Monitoring Coordinators Tim and Karissa ventured out to upper Chorro Creek, on Camp SLO property, to scout out new locations for conducting bioassessment surveys. This site would help …

Photograph Friday: Baycam Favorites from Summer and Fall 2018

November 2, 2018 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program baycam boats Dragon Boat Team USA dragon boat tryouts estuary MBNEP moonset morro bay Morro Bay fog Morro rock national estuary program sunrise sunset tide weather webcam Photograph Friday

Sunsets over the bay can be bring both bright light and an abundance of long shadows.

The Estuary Program’s Morro Bay webcam, or Baycam as we call it, has what some might consider the perfect job. No matter the day or the hour, it watches life unfold on the bay, without any particular goal in mind. It observes the scene as clouds move, fog rolls in and out, the moon and sun chase each other across the sky, and boats bob and dance as the tides change. It sees every single sunrise and sunset, capturing photographs along the way. In today’s Photograph Friday post, we’ll share some of our favorite Baycam pictures from this summer …

Native Plant Series #6: Estuarine and Salt Marsh

October 26, 2018 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program birds botany estuary mudflat native plants pickleweed salt marsh sediment state park marina suaeda californica wetland ecology Blog Posts Native Plants

Our final post in this series will explore the estuarine and salt marsh plant communities that make up the unique estuarine environment of Morro Bay. Not sure what a plant community is? Take a look at our introductory post to the Morro Bay Native Plant Series, an exploration of our watershed’s diverse native flora! An estuary is a place where freshwater meets the sea. In Morro Bay, the freshwater creeks and streams from our watershed drain into and mix with the salty seawater of the bay. The mixing of freshwater and seawater creates a unique and productive environment …

2018 Volunteers of the Year

October 19, 2018 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program eelgrass estuary estuary program los osos MBNEP morro bay volunteer volunteering water quality Blog Posts Volunteering

The Morro Bay National Estuary Program, like many nonprofits, relies on volunteers who generously donate their time and expertise. Volunteers make up our governing board and committees, reach out to students at events and in classrooms, collect and analyze water samples, transplant eelgrass, and keep our Mutts for the Bay dog waste bag dispensers stocked and ready. Estuary Program volunteerism by the numbers During the past year: Volunteers spent 156 hours working to restore eelgrass to Morro Bay and another 27 hours on other restoration work in the watershed. 55 people volunteered through our Monitoring Program, spending 805 …

FIELD UPDATES SEPTEMBER 2018: Fish Surveys, Fish Habitat, and Sharing What We’ve Learned

October 12, 2018 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program e-dna electrofishing environmental dna estuary estuary program field notes field updates field work fish barrier fish ladder fish passage MBNEP morro bay pikeminnow santa lucia fly fishers Club steelhead trout stillwater sciences volunteers Blog Posts Field Updates

We observed this juvenile steelhead trout during a fish survey on Chorro Creek.

Fulfilling our mission to protect and restore the Morro Bay estuary for people and wildlife requires a lot of hard work in the field. At the Estuary Program, that often entails doing research, restoration, and monitoring work out on the estuary and along the creeks that feed into it. Read on to see what we’ve been up to during the past month. Fish surveys Our field highlight for September was heading out with Stillwater Sciences and volunteers to complete fish surveys in Chorro Creek. We conducted fish sampling, a process of catching, identifying, measuring, and releasing fish, that …

Rain Comes to Morro Bay at the Start of a New Water Year

October 5, 2018 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program estuary MBNEP morro bay national estuary program precipitation rain year rainfall storm stormwater water year Blog Posts citizen science

First rain of the water year Rain returned to the Central Coast this week, bringing precipitation totals between one third of an inch and six tenths of an inch within the Morro Bay estuary watershed. This storm came after a six-month break in significant precipitation and just after the October 1 start of the new, 2019 water year. A water year is a twelve-month period of time that begins October 1 of one calendar year and ends September 30 of the next. The reason that the water year differs from the calendar year is that, in many places, precipitation that falls …

How much do you know about Morro Bay’s sea otters?

September 28, 2018 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program conservation endangered species enhydra lutris estuary MBNEP morro bay morro bay national estuary program otters sea otter sea otter awareness sea otter babies sea otter pup sea otter savvy Blog Posts

A mother sea otter and her pup float on Morro Bay above a seagrass bed.

You might have admired sea otters near Coleman Beach, Morro Rock, or the South T-pier, but how much do you know about Morro Bay’s furriest residents? Since it’s Sea Otter Awareness Week, it’s a good time to test your knowledge with this quick quiz. (Scroll to the bottom of the blog post for the answers and more fun sea otter information.) Sea Otter Quiz (Scroll down to find the answers to this quiz and more sea otter facts.) How many hairs do sea otters have per square inch of their bodies? Up to 10,000 Up to 100,000 Up to …

Coastal Cleanup Day Volunteers

September 21, 2018 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program california coast Captain Stew's Bay Cruise cleanup community volunteer ecoslo estuary icc international coastal cleanup day MBNEP microtrash morro bay national estuary program plastic waste snowy plover trash free seas volunteer Blog Posts Cleanups

A fun family competition lead to this group of dedicated volunteers picking up 664 cigarette butts. Wow!

Thousands of volunteers participated in local Coastal Cleanup Day events Coastal Cleanup Day calls family and friends together to tend to the health of California’s coast by picking up trash and recycling. For the past fourteen years, local nonprofit ECOSLO has organized the cleanup efforts countywide. This year, 1,312 volunteers picked up 5,688 pounds of trash and recycling from 36 cleanup sites. Ten of those sites were located inland. This might seem odd, but trash left on the ground storm drains that are miles from the beach run into creeks that empty directly into bays or the open …

Native Plant Series #5: Riparian

September 14, 2018 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program creek estuary estuary program groundwater los osos morro bay native plant native plants phreatophytes riparian water table watershed willow Blog Posts

This series of native plant blog posts has explored the different plants found throughout the Morro Bay watershed. A watershed is an area where freshwater creeks and streams flow from higher ground down towards the ocean. Riparian zone plants reach deep when streams run dry In the Morro Bay Watershed, some creeks and streams flow year round, and some don’t. Even though they’re not full of water, dry creek beds are still bordered by vegetation. This is due to the presence of groundwater, which is water that exists beneath Earth’s surface in soil pore spaces (the space between …