The Scorpion is as black as soot,
He dearly loves to bite;
He is a most unpleasant brute
To find in bed at night.
I found this fellow running across my desk in the house today.
Luckily I had my mug to trap him, so I could take him outside.
Scorpion
Paruroctonus silvestrii …. These are the common little scorpions here in California.
They are not terribly poisonous… I’ve been stung by one once….
It feels like a nail has been driven into your skin. It really hurts….
The local site of my strike suffered a necrosis…
in ten days I had a small half pea-sized chunk of skin and meat slough off, leaving a half-healed crater in my finger. But it grew back in OK.
I got stung while digging a hole and not wearing gloves..
always wear your protective gear… if I’d had strong gloves on, I’d not have been stung….
just like when the tarantula or the Black Widow bit me… gloves would have been nice then too! LOL
Scorpion
Click to embiggen,
you can see the hairs on this dude.
A Scorpion, Paruroctonus silvestrii
I let him go in the front yard… which is just a weed-whacked wilderness really.
We have deer and quail wandering daily in the front yard….
We see tarantulas and scorpions and rattlesnakes here often enough….
there’s no need to run this guy a mile away to ‘release’ him….
but when I got close to take his picture… he got shy and curled up, all scared
when I backed the camera off he’d jump up and start to run away.
A Scorpion
Yeah, he’s a pretty nice looking little animal.
He reminds me of a lobster
Our lobsters here in California don’t have big claws….
These guys hold their prey with their claws.. and their stinging tail comes up and over their head… they will push the spike into their prey… it pushes in and holds there… you can see they will often make several little pushes to fully embed the stinger.
When I got stung, it happened very quickly….
I think in my case it just wanted to give me a ‘short, sharp shock’ so I’d know I was crushing it while digging bare-handed in the soil. In the case of a bug that it captures, it has the ability to hold and restrain the prey animal while it very deliberately injects its poison to maximum effect.
Dinosaur Caves is a small little section of beach-cliff in the Shell Beach/Pismo Beach area of the Central Coast of California.
If you’ve ever been to Lagos Portugal… you’ll recognize similar features… but Portugal has warmer and clearer water.
The rock strata and the waves have created an ever-changing landscape of eroded cliffs and caves and holes underneath them.
Caves and arches can be seen aplenty.. but since it is so difficult and precarious to navigate on the rocks, one does not see the full beauty of the cliffs from above them, looking down.
We rented some kayaks from Central Coat Kayaks in Shell Beach. They have a full range of various types and sizes of kayaks and paddleboards. They like to get people started early in the mornings to avoid the wind. We tend to get very windy in the afternoons.
The caves are interesting, beautiful. It seems like you’re in another world… one of National Geographic explorers, and strange exotic animals….. it’s really pretty cool to just drift like a piece of wood, right up near nesting colonies of birds, seeing seals and sea otters.
You have to be careful not to get so close that you disturb them… but they seem to be used to people drifting about in quiet boats….
The rocky cliff-side is pockmarked with caves of various sizes and depths. As you go along, you can envision how the coastline has changed through the millenia… some areas were obviously caves, but are now just narrow arches… soon to fall into the sea leaving only the posts on either side.
Kayaks in glassy water off Shell Beach
Pismo Beach @ Dinosaur Caves
Harbor Seals basking on rocks at Dinosaur Caves
The big arch at Dinosaur Caves
The big Cave at Dinosaur Caves
Kelp & Kayaks @ low tide
Kelp offshore at Dinosaur Cave, low tide
Arch at Dinosaur Cave
Kayaks inside one of the caves
Kayaks exploring Dinosaur Cave California
Kayaks on glassy water at Shell Beach
Pelicans on rocks at Dinosaur Caves California from the Kayak
Pelicans on rocks at Dinosaur Caves California
Pismo Beach from the sea
Shell Beach staircase to the sea
The Big Cave is really something to see. From shore you can see only the small hole that comes through to the land-side…
We all went through the cave…. you have to time it with the ocean swell so that the wave will pick your boat up and carry you over the rocks…. then you have to stop yourself and turn when the wave carries you through… because it crashes against the cliff on the other side…. it’s totally awesome and rad Dude!
One of the fellows even worked back against the tide through the big cave.. seemed like quite a feat to me..
We paddled into one of the caves that has two holes… most of the waves go into one hole, and with a great rushing and swirling turbulence, it rushes out the other hole…. it was really easy to get into the cave…. but getting out was a bit of a challenge…. I pushed the other fellow out, helping to guide his boat through the crashing surf…. helping to guide it in the narrow channel filled with rushing waters going every direction, and trying to carry the boat sideways to hang bow and stern on the rocks…. we got him started, and like a sluice… once he got to a certain spot, he was able to just zip right on through…. then I was next… alone.. it took three tries.. but third time’s the charm… like a dream the boat found its own way through the channel, and it looked like I knew what I was doing!
Kayaks are surprisingly easy to learn…. they are a pretty safe way to boat… much more stable than you’d imagine due to the low profile…. VERY shallow draft…. and Central Coat Kayaks will even give you lessons at their clinics and one-on-one lessons.
Get out there and have some fun.. and good clean water-sports are one of the best ways to experience life and maintain fitness.
We have Turkey Vultures in this area. They are pretty amazing animals….. they can eat dead animals felled by disease, and their systems can clean the disease out…. they are called the ‘trashmen of the wilderness’… they are a necessary component to our local eco-system.
They are also terribly pest-ridden creatures…. infested with little crawlies… and stinking really bad… really, really, really bad.
But I like them a lot…. they taste a bit like a cross between a Peregrine Falcon and a Spotted Owl! (Joke).
They are an amazing little creature to watch… they will sit high on a treetop or cliff waiting for the sun to cause the thermal updrafts that they ride so effortlessly…. a simple jump into the breeze… a short downhill glide to build air-current causing lift (the curves of the wings causes a vacuum that actually lifts the animal up), and the animal can turn into the updrafts… letting the upwelling column of air lift the bird up gradually… they must spin in circles inside this column of air….. each circle will bring them a bit higher than they were before…. all of this is done with just small ‘tweaks’ to the feathers… the birds can control some of the flight feathers giving small adjustments to balance and steering.
Amazing creatures really….
Incidentally… they have to take several running steps to build momentum for lift if starting off on the level ground. A Turkey vulture in a five foot pen cannot fly out due to this take-off restriction. I’d say a Turkey Vulture takes thirty feet horizontal-run to get six feet off the ground.
Turkey Vulture on a tree
I saw this Vulture in a tree over the creek…..
Turkey Vultures on a tree
Moments later a cousin (they nest in family groups) came to mess with him…..
They squawked for a few moments, then left off together to do some Vulture stuff I’d not understand.
Avila California has a few really nice piers.
The Sea Lions have taken to sleeping along some of the lower access walkways.
It’s illegal to try to get them to move.. as this may be construed as harassing them….
They are also wild beasts… so if you try to get past them.. they might get scared and bite….
In fact… these critters are like dogs with flippers and no ears. They are beautiful creatures when in the water…. they transform from the ungainly creatures we see on land.. to swirling and twirling flying dancers in the deep kelp…..
beautiful and astounding.
Sealwoman/Yundah
Mary McLaughlin
Over the waves you call to me
Shadow of dream, ancient mystery
Oh how I long for your sweet caress
Oh how I long for your gentleness
Torn between sea mists and solid land
Nights when I’ve ached for a human hand
I’ll come to you when the moon shines bright
But I must go free with the first streak of light
Over the waves you call to me
Shadow of dream ancient mystery
Oh how I long for your sweet caress
Oh how I long for your gentleness
Shell Beach cliffs... notice the caves and the nesting birds
Shell Beach cliffs…
Shell Beach cliffs... notice the caves and the nesting birds
Shell Beach cliffs... looking north
Shell Beach cliffs... looking toward Pismo Beach
Shell Beach cliffs... looking toward Pismo Beach
Shell Beach sea lions basking on rocks
The Shell Beach area is very nice. There is good shopping locally, some interesting historical attractions within 50 miles, and the weather is usually fairly cool in the summer… this makes it a comfortable place to spend part of a summer vacation when other places are blazing with heat.
The beaches here are all on narrow strips of sand at the base of cliffs. The cliffs here tend to be some 40 feet tall. Many of them have resorts on top… this is a very heavy resort town. This makes it a very interesting place to visit as there are people from all across the world visiting the area.
We leave water out for the local wildlife… even though the deer love many of our cactus plants… I like having them around. Our best cactus is behind a seven foot tall fence….
The local does (a female deer) have their babies here… it is a safer place than further from the house. Local predators do not come to our house that much because it riles the dogs…. the dogs bark like crazy at the deer, but don’t worry them too much. The dogs are preferable to coyotes….
Our dogs are chihuahuas… so mostly all they do is make a ruckus. They get scared by anything larger than them… so they fright up when they see a rabbit. But they do keep predators away…. believe me, foxes, coyotes and lions don’t worry about a chihuahua… but they know there is usually a human nearby… so this is a relatively safe place for deer. Sometimes we get to see the babies nursing…. so sweet.
Here’s a photo of the little fawn near our house. I took this photo from our open front door.
We came upon a salamander in the woods.
We took a picture, and set him back into the forest duff.
This was underneath some massive giant Coastal Oak trees.
It’s amazing that these little guys can survive in such a dry climate.
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