For ten years, Kathie and I have been volunteering as seed collectors at Madison Audubon Society's Goose Pond Sanctuary. Today was the "kick off" for seed collecting for the fall.…

Today we had a nice visit from the restoration specialists at the McHenry County (Illinois) Conservation District. Conservation Districts (some of them are called Forest Preserves) seem to be an…

Our annual Labor Day field trip was held yesterday. Twenty people attended. The weather was warm (actually hot), but a light cloud cover helped keep conditions bearable.One of the traditions…

Saturday morning Kathie and I visited a very fine prairie remnant in eastern Iowa County. This site, on private land, is being managed by the Prairie Enthusiasts. It is a…

In an earlier post I stated that we had only three species of the genus Desmodium at Pleasant Valley Conservancy. Since then we have found a fourth, D. paniculatum, panicled…

At the Grassland Research Network meeting today I learned that a number of prairie restoration projects in various states are using the Floristic Quality Index value as a measure of…

This week Kathie and I are attending a meeting of the Grassland Research Network at the U.W. Madison Arboretum. Folks at this meeting are from various Midwest states plus a…

Yesterday Ted Cochrane (in the middle in the above photo) from the U.W. Herbarium led a very informative field trip to two sand prairies in Sauk County, Schluckebier and Gasser.…

This is the time when the hyssops are in full bloom. We have two species at Pleasant Valley Conservancy, giant yellow hyssop (Agastache nepetoides; photo to the left), which is…

In a recent post I described "trapping" three turkey poults while mowing a fire break. Today, I trapped a young pheasant in the same fire break with my Kawasaki Mule.…