Ellwood Nature Preserve in Goleta

[SkierBob]

my friend just sent me these.  shot on 2/12/12

[Elk]

Very cool. This is a place I would love to see someday. Thanks SB

[Tomas]

Fascinating

[lagomorphmom]

Just lovely. Back in the day when I did a stint at CSU Long Beach, they used to gather on the bougainvillaea that border the parking lot by the engineering buildings. That was awesome, but not as spectacular as hanging from the trees like the above, WOW!

[Joe Schmoe]

....I wonder where they would go if the invasive Eucalyptus trees weren't there.

[SkierBob]

Yep, good point.  Their native trees in the area would be coastal live oak, but there are very few of them left in very disjunct areas.  In this case, this non-native tree is providing valuable habitat to a charismatic native species, the Monarch.

http://www.monarch-butterfly.com/monarch-migration.html