sbrobert
By Robert Bernstein
Here are my photos from this past weekend of sightings of a scorpion and a tarantula in our area!
On Friday night we participated in the Friday night Sierra Club hike to Inspiration Point.
We enjoyed inspiring views at sunset:
Then we descended the trail in the dark. Someone spotted a small scorpion in the middle of the trail. I waited my turn to look at it and to get some photos!
As far as I remember, this was the first time I have seen a scorpion in our area. I have seen them in Arizona and in Mexico. Others said they have seen them before here.
On Sunday we went for a drive in late afternoon in the Santa Ynez Valley, keeping an eye out for tarantulas. In my experience they tend to appear along the roads in this season after around 4:30PM.
Interestingly, I have always seen them on roads closer to where people live. Not in the back country.
We started out from Solvang on Ballard Canyon Road. I was very happy to see this tarantula scurry across the road around 3:15PM in the afternoon heat and sunlight! He had already made it to the other side of the road by the time I grabbed my camera:
I jumped out to get a closer look. He was already in the dry grass along the side of the road, but I still got some good views.
My wife thought we should move him to a safer place, but it looked to me as if he was safe on the side of the road:
In this season the males roam the roads in search of females in their burrows.
We roamed the roads for another hour or so in search of the males. We tried Foxen Canyon Road. Figueroa Mountain Road. Refugio Road. Baseline Avenue. Edison Street. Armour Ranch Road. Happy Canyon Road. I have seen tarantulas in the past on each of these roads.
We enjoyed some beautiful scenery:
But no more tarantulas. Still, I consider it a success! One tarantula sighting is way more cool than none!
