Our five interns began work yesterday. The intern program, administered by Madison Audubon Society, is an important part of our summer restoration work. This is the sixth year Pleasant Valley…

The East Basin, a small (4.2 acres) isolated valley on the far eastern end of Pleasant Valley Conservancy, is the last area being restored. Because of its location, it did…

Garlic mustard is by now famous in southern Wisconsin as our worst invasive plant. People everywhere are working to eradicate it. Roadsides are major eradication targets because this is the…

Woodland sunflowers (Helianthus spp.) are showy plants but highly invasive. Although they are found mainly along wood edges, they often remain after woods are cleared of invasive shrubs and trees.…

Today Kathie and I made a brief visit to the bird banding station near Picnic Point in UW-Madison's Lakeshore Nature Preserve. This fascinating program has been operating for several years…

I have mentioned in previous posts that we have been raising prairie and savanna plants in the greenhouse. We collected the seeds ourselves, and did some germination tests to assess…

For the past two weeks we have been carrying out a big push to control brambles in our savannas. The successful burns we had about a month ago top-killed most…

This is a great year for wood betony (Pedicularis canadensis). At Pleasant Valley Conservancy we have seen more this year than we ever have. Most of it was planted, but…

Today Kathie and I attended an event at the Nature Conservancy's Spring Green Preserve, to recognize our contribution to a new acquisition and to see the preserve in its early…

This is the time of year to see and enjoy birds.Recently, I flushed a pair of sandhill cranes who were foraging on Toby's Prairie, our dry mesic planted prairie that…