Ellwood Butterfly Preserve

I thought it was curious that after living in Santa Barbara for four years that I never knew about the Ellwood Butterfly Preserve just a few miles from my home. When I moved to the Ellwood Beach area, with its great hiking trails and year-round surf, I finally discovered one of the largest butterfly preserves in the country! It is not highly advertised, which must be purposeful in order to keep the thousands of monarch butterflies continuing to visit each year! The gorgeous black and orange monarchs fly from Canada, stopping along the way down the coast of California, to Mexico, and back up! This annual migration takes several generations.

I was taken away the first time I saw the butterflies. On a warm, sunny day, they flutter all around before they land in bunches and blend in to look like tree leaves. Looking straight up in the sky, thousands of butterflies circle in every direction- like the image inside a kaleidoscope! I've never seen a more perfect image in nature. It is essential to go on a hot day, however, because I have returned on cooler days and it has never been quite the same.