Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count

This is the 107th year of the Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count, held all over the country. For the past 8 years, Pleasant Valley Conservancy has been participating in this count, which for our area centers on Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, and is coordinated by intrepid birder Ken Wood. Although Kathie and I are not expert birders, we enjoy participating and can usually add a few interesting species to the count.

This year, Kathie, Susan, and I did the count, working from 8:30 AM until noon. In addition to the usual crows, blue jays, and juncos, we found lots of white-breasted nuthatches, some chickadees, goldfinches, a red-bellied woodpecker, a few downy and hairy woodpeckers, two pileated woodpeckers, a couple of mallard ducks, three eastern bluebirds, and six cedar waxwings. We found no red-headed woodpeckers this year, although they were present all summer and fall, and we have seen them on the bird count most previous years. However, birds do move around, and we know that there were lots of red-headed woodpeckers today about three miles away at the Wade/Trochlell property.

Many of those doing the bird count gathered in the evening for a potluck supper, after which reports were made of bird sightings. It is always interesting to hear the reports of other birders.

The weather today was mostly cloudy, a bit misty, and windless. The lack of wind made hearing better, and helped to increase the count. It was great walking around Pleasant Valley Conservancy on a quiet Sunday morning!

Important Information!

Today at 4 PM the property of Pleasant Valley Conservancy owned by Savanna Oak Foundation, Inc. was donated without charge to The Prairie Enthusiasts, a Wisconsin organization dedicated to the restoration and preservation of prairies, oak savannas, and other fire-controlled natural areas. The Prairie Enthusiasts is a membership organization with chapters in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota.

Also today, a conservation easement for the property at Pleasant Valley Conservancy owned by Thomas D. and Katherine M. Brock was donated without charge to The Prairie Enthusiasts.

These two donations ensure that Pleasant Valley Conservancy will be managed and permanently preserved by The Prairie Enthusiasts.

Kathie and I are very pleased to be able to make these donations and we look forward to continuing to work with The Prairie Enthusiasts as Site Managers.

Simple Herbicide Applicator for Cut Stems

Dale Karow and wife Kim have developed a simple herbicide applicator for use on small cut stems such as resprouts from gray dogwood, buckthorn, or brambles. Dale kindly gave me one of his applicators and we have modified it for our purposes. The "business end" of the applicator is a disposable foam paint brush, available in various sizes at any hardware store. The brush comes with a round handle (1/2 inch diameter). The wand is a 7/8 inch wooden rod such as a broomstick handle. A 1/2 inch hole is drilled in the end of the rod and the brush handle inserted.

In use, we load the brush with an herbicide squirt bottle, then touch each cut stem. A single load of herbicide is usually enough for 10-12 stems.

There are several great benefits from this applicator: 1) It is very economical of herbicide; 2) A lot of stooping is avoided; 3) Many steps are saved, since one can reach out in various directions.

We find that the applicator works best if the cut stem is patted a couple of times. The red dye permits monitoring to ensure that each stem is treated.

I have heard of commercial herbicide applicators costing $25 to $80. These foam paint brushes cost about $0.50 or less, and can be used many times before they wear out.

Great invention, Dale and Kim!

New Aerial Photo

Aerial photos are a great way of monitoring restoration work. In the past several years, lots more aerial photos have begun appearing on web sites. The aerial seen at the above link is the best I have ever seen of Pleasant Valley Conservancy (thanks, Chris Noll, for finding it). I have provided some labels that help connect the photo with our various restoration areas. The savannas and prairies especially show clearly, as do our fire breaks and utility roads. Enjoy!

Volunteering at Ripp Prairie

Today, Kathie and I volunteered with a work "party" at Ripp Prairie, one of the sites of the Empire/Sauk Chapter of The Prairie Enthusiasts. This site has a relatively nice dry prairie remnant with areas that have deteriorated greatly. Our work today involved clearing buckthorn, honeysuckle, brambles, gray dogwood, and sumac from the edges of a little-blue-stem-dominated remnant. There were 10 of us, and we worked with chain saws, brush cutters, loppers, and hand clippers. Every cut stem was treated with herbicide (glyphosate) to prevent resprouting. The weather was above freezing, which made work relatively pleasant. At the end of the session, quite a nice-sized area had been cleared.

Unfortunately, the area that we cleared had lots of small buckthorn seedlings, which were impossible to cut or control. The group had an interesting discussion of how to deal with these seedlings, which obviously arose from the seed bank. (There were numerous large buckthorn shrubs nearby with many berries, which the birds will eat voraciously and move to new areas.) The consensus was that the only way to deal with these buckthorn seedlings was a foliar spray with an herbicide such as triclopyr (Garlon 3A) soon after leaf out in the spring. Triclopyr is very effective against woody plants, and since it does not affect grasses, little blue stem should be able to move into these areas.

There are large numbers of these small dry-prairie remnants in our part of Wisconsin. Most of them are at the far boundaries of dairy farms. They were too rocky too plow, and too far from the barn for much grazing. Mostly these remnants are only a few acres in extent, but often act as refuges for many less common prairie plants. Some of these remnants even maintain populations of State or Federally endangered species.

Report on the Symposium on Invasive Plants

At the Midwest Invasive Plant Symposium, held at Milwaukee, we had two full days of talks and discussion on invasive plants. The first day was focussed more on science, the second day more on practical matters. The rooms were crowded and the talks were generally quite good. The Q & A after each talk was incisive and interesting. Since attendees were all from the midwest, the problems were in general similar, although our neighbors to the south (Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois) had invaders that we haven't seen (yet?).

The most interesting talk for me was one given by Ellen Jacquart, a former Badger who is Director of Stewardship for the Indiana Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. Entitled "Stop Wasting Time on Invasives: Plan Your Way to Success", this talk laid out a strategy for developing a plan to control an invasive plant in a natural area. The material was based on the very useful, very thorough, Nature Conservancy web site on weed control, which can be found at http://tncweeds.ucdavis.edu/products.html. (Copy the address and paste it into your browser window.)

Some of the Power Point presentations of talks focussing on Wisconsin problems should be put up on the IPAW web site (http://www.ipaw.org) in the next few weeks.

Another value to the meeting was the chance to talk with land managers at other preserves who had problems similar to ours. Since Kathie and I attended separate sessions, we were able to make contact with quite a few people.

This meeting was co-hosted by the North Central Weed Science Society, the Invasive Plants Association of Wisconsin, and the Midwest Invasive Plant Network. In all, a very useful meeting.

Symposium on Invasive Plants in the Midwest

Kathie and I are attending the Invasive Plants symposium in Milwaukee. Two days of papers and posters on the kinds of invasive plants we love to hate. Early December might seem like a quiet time for most restorationists and hence a good time for a symposium. However, restoration work never stops at Pleasant Valley Conservancy. We are missing a day of brush cutting, as our "team" works on Tuesdays and Thursdays. However, it is good to keep up on the latest advances in invasive plants control.

The main organizer of the symposium is the North Central Weed Science Society. But the Midwest Invasive Plant Network and the Invasive Plants Association of Wisconsin (IPAW) are also participants. IPAW is close to my heart because I was in at the beginning of this organization, and actually did the paper work with the State of Wisconsin and the U.S. Government to get us incorporated and tax exempt. I was the treasurer for the first two years, and had the pleasure of seeing checks pour in as members joined up. Also, I played a major role in getting IPAW's web site up and running, writing quite a bit and editing most of the rest. Now I am retired from IPAW, and am pleased to see how well it is doing.

Making Seed Mixes

We are finally finished cleaning seeds and are making up seed mixes for planting. This is a major activity, as we have over 130 species of native prairie and savanna plants, and are planting quite a few areas. The major cold spell we have had the past few days has made it difficult to do field work, so we stayed indoors and made seed mixes. Yesterday, Kathie and Susan worked all day, and today Kathie and I worked all day; between us we got most of the job done.

Many species grow in more than one habitat, although there are variations in success rate. Data for the relative proportions come from the large database accumulated by John Curtis for his book The Vegetation of Wisconsin. These data have been computerized by Henderson and McCown: Plant species composition of Wisconsin prairies (cited below; Nov 24, 2006).

Making the seed mixes is mainly a job in bookkeeping, as it is vital to keep everything straight. For Pleasant Valley Conservancy, we are planting wetlands, dry, dry-mesic, and wet-mesic prairies, and open and closed oak savannas, so we make mixes for all of these types. Most species are used in more than one vegetation type, although not all, and the proportions needed vary. For some habitats, we are planting only small areas, whereas for others we are planting large areas.

Although we try to be careful when making our mixes, this is not rocket science. Most of the proportions are based on volumes, and we often find it convenient to measure quantities in handfuls. Thus, if we need twice as much open savanna as dry-prairie mix, we would put twice as many handfuls of a species used in both these mixes. When we finish, all of the seeds collected for that species will have been used up. However, if we had great seed set and collected more than we needed, we give the extra to someone else. This year, we are giving seeds to over a dozen folks doing prairie or savanna restoration.

Our guide to making seed mixes is a spreadsheet I prepare in Excel that lists every species we collected in column A (Latin name). Adjacent columns have the headings of the various seed mixes and an X marked in each column where that species is going to be used. All of the cleaned seeds are sitting in bags in our basement. We pick up a bag, check its identity, than read the spreadsheet to see which mixes that species will be in. Quantities are counted out in handfuls, the appropriate number for each mix. We start out making mixes in buckets, but as the volume of mix grows, we switch to large white feed bags (purchased at an agricultural co-op).

We are planting some areas yet this fall (really, winter), and the other areas we are planting in the spring. The seeds for spring planting will be hung all winter in feed bags in the barn.We try to plant onto bare ground, which means that we usually plant after burns.

Hopefully, we will be able to get our fall/winter planting in before Christmas, although if the weather doesn't cooperate, our planting may get shifted to January.

Arrowhead (Sagittaria latifolia)

We have a lot of spring-fed pools and tiny creeklets in our wetland but they are hard to get to without getting your feet wet. Arrowhead was a plant we had in our early years of restoration and then did not find it any more. Kathie wondered what had happened to it. Then this year she found it again and took the nice photo shown here.

The area where she found it was at the edge of a small flowing creeklet that comes out of a spring, wanders around the marsh a bit, and then disappears into a thick mat of floating muck, all held together by plants such as tall meadow rue, flat-top aster, swamp saxifrage, marsh marigold, and a few willows. The area leading up to this creeklet is firm enough so you can walk on it without getting wet. However, you do have to push your way through some tall plants to reach the flowing water.

Of course, this photo was taken in July, but I just got around to getting the identification confirmed by Ted Cochrane of the UW Herbarium. (Ted is a priceless resource!)

Google Images has quite a few photos of this species, but none as good as this one Kathie took.

Preparing Our Seed Collection List

We are finally (I think) finished with seed collecting. We've collected later this year than any year in the past. I'm not sure why, except some species seemed to be late in seed maturation.

The past few days (even a little on Thanksgiving Day!) I have been computerizing our seed collections. I started with Kathie's handwritten log, which starts in May and ends in November. Each species gets a separate line, with the collection dates and locations indicated. I enter these into an Excel spreadsheet, using a lookup table routine where I enter a six letter code for the particular species (Latin name). This code is converted by Excel into two adjacent cells, one the Latin name and the other the common name. The next two cells get the date and location. A final cell is reserved for notes. If the species was collected on more than one day, or at more than one location, each day/location gets a separate line. This year there were 234 separate entries of over 150 species.

Once the data are all entered, I can sort by various fields, such as Latin name or location. This gives a detailed record of where successful collections were made, and when. The seed collecting date table in this web site was constructed from data of this type.

We also use these data to create planting mixes for our fall and spring plantings. A separate column is used for each type of planting mix: dry prairie; dry-mesic prairie; open savanna; wet-mesic prairie; wetland; woods; and special. A check mark is made under the appropriate habitat. Which species occur in which types of habitat are obtained from the valuable book by Henderson and McCown: Plant species composition of Wisconsin prairies
(Technical bulletin; Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources, No. 188)
Madison, Wisconsin: Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, 1995
58 pgs.

This book is available on line from the UW Digital Collections at the following URL: http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/EcoNatRes/EcoNatRes-idx?id=EcoNatRes.DNRBull188.

Some species are found in more than one habitat, so that there may be checks in more than one column. Once all the data are entered, the spreadsheet is sorted successively for each column, which brings together in one place all the species to be used for each seed mix.

Exactly how much seed goes in each mix depends on three things: 1) the acreage being planted with that seed mix; 2) the amount of seed we have collected; 3) the relative importance of each species for a particular habitat. The importance values come from the Henderson/McCown book.

This approach helps to avoid either overplanting or underplanting any species.

By the time we get ready to actually plant, it will probably be December. Last year we planted on the snow.

In addition to planting various seed mixes, we also have a number of rare species that we will be planting individually, making certain that they are placed in particularly favorable locations at Pleasant Valley Conservancy.

Since the Conservancy has 140 acres, with a wide diversity of habitats, it takes us quite a while to get everything sorted and ready to go. Still, the work is worth it, since we have found from previous experience that this approach is quite successful.

The Last Burn of the Year?

We thought we were finished controlled burns for the season and then the weather turned so favorable that we could not resist. The temperature was 55 F, the Relative Humidity 30%, and the wind was out of the south varying from 5-12 mph. Perfect for us to do some extensive interior lighting on Units 8 and 10, two units that we tried to burn on Hallowe'en (see Oct. 31 entry below) with only moderate success. There were four of us, Kathie, Susan, Jim, and I. Since both units were surrounded by black lines from the Hallowe'en burn, we felt confident we could handle the burn.

We spent the morning cutting brush, waiting for it to warm up. We started the burn at 1:15 PM and were finished by 3:45 PM. Lots of the last hour was spent on mop-up.

This probably really will be the last burn of the year. Now we can look forward to late March/April when the spring burn season gets under way.

The Oak Leaf as a Fuel in Controlled Burns

After we finished our prairie burns on November 9, we went back to the savanna areas we had burned on Hallowe'en and did some interior lighting of areas that had not burned. This gave me the chance of photographing oak leaves on fire, a process that I have always found fascinating. The fire-sensitivity of the oak leaf is what makes an oak savanna possible. This photo shows the advancing front.

I assume there are chemicals in oak leaves that make them burn especially well. But another characteristic is the way the oak leaf is curled, clearly visible in this photo. The curl keeps the leaf up off the damp soil surface. It also keeps the flames off the ground so that the fire can move easily from one leaf to another. This makes it possible for even a thin layer of leaves to carry a fire.

The savanna fire is not very hot, but it is hot enough so you can feel the heat when you are standing next to the advancing front. It is also hot enough at ground level to heat-girdle shrubs and most tree seedlings. However, small bur oak seedlings have a thick layer of corky bark and are fire resistant.

Ever since we did our first savanna burn in 1998, I have found it fascinating to watch the advancing front through an area of oak leaves. It make take several hours for the fire to spread through a burn unit, but it continues to spread, slowly and inexorably.

 

Wind Damage in Oak Savannas

Our oak savanna restoration has created large gaps between trees. Before our clearing, these gaps were filled with "undesirable" trees of various sizes. In 2005 we had a major wind storm that caused extensive damage (as many as 25 large trees) along our ridge-top savanna in an area that had been cleared during 2000-2003. Was this damage the result of our restoration work? Would we have lost these trees if we hadn't cleared?

There is a lot of literature on wind damage in forests and an internet search for "thinning" and "windthrow" will turn up quite a few hits. The conclusion seems to be that thinning increases wind damage, causing both whole tree uprooting, and crown damage (limbs and small branches broken off). On the other hand, many of the damaged trees may have been weakened by disease (oak wilt, for instance). In fact, many of the trees we lost in the 2005 storm had shown signs of disease.

The upside of wind damage may be that diseased, high-risk trees are removed. The remaining trees then may adapt to greater exposure and become less sensitive to windthrow. Eventually, new reproduction can begin in the gaps, and if fire is maintained, the oak savanna will end up better than ever.

Even with all this wind damage, I do not regret our restoration work. We still have many great open-grown oaks, and our work has hugely improved the groundlayer vegetation.

The Promise of Oak Savanna Restoration

The oak savanna was once the most common plant community in southern Wisconsin and is now among the rarest. However, there is great promise for savanna restoration. This is because its foundation, the open-grown oak, is often still present, hidden under the invasive trees and shrubs that have thrived in the absence of fire. (If there are no open-grown oaks, due to heavy logging, don't bother to restore.)

The oaks are there; what is lacking is the groundlayer vegetation, and this we can restore. There are three major steps:

1. Remove the invasive trees and shrubs by cutting and treating the cut stumps with herbicide. This is the single most expensive part of the restoration.

2. Introduce fire. The principal fuel, oak leaves, will be present, and even in the absence of groundlayer vegetation should carry a fire. If possible, burn annually, and burn as thoroughly as conditions permit. This may require lots of interior lighting. (Savanna burns are much more difficult to do than prairie burns.)

3. To establish a savanna groundlayer, plant, plant, plant, using seeds collected from other savannas, or from tiny remnants on the property being restored. Planting must be done over and over, year after year, until the groundlayer diversity is reestablished. Some species are easy to reestablish: the savanna grasses, most asters and goldenrods. Some species are difficult to reestablish: the gentians, milkweeds, hyssops, upland boneset, yellow pimpernel, culver's root. Whether some of these become established from an initial planting may depend on the quality of the seeds and the conditions during the first growing season. Plan on replanting annually until success has been achieved.

In all cases, plant on bare ground. In an oak savanna, this means after a burn, since you have to get rid of that layer of oak leaves so the seeds can reach the bare soil. Plant preferably in the fall to ensure that the seeds become well stratified over winter and can get an early start in the spring.

When we started oak savanna restoration at Pleasant Valley Conservancy, we had only a few very common groundlayer species, such as sweet cicely, pointed tick-trefoil, and tinker's weed. Now we have several hundred groundlayer species, including some that are on the State list as endangered or threatened.

For further information.

Great Burn Day

Today was an outstanding day for controlled burns. We burned three planted prairies and did some interior lighting on the savanna burn that we had done on Hallowe'en.

Burn weather in the fall is catch-as-catch can. There is no predictable season. You have to be prepared, and when the conditions are right, burn. Today was the day. Fortunately, we were able to get a burn crew together.

The weather in October had been wet and highly variable. There was a change in the weather pattern in late October, and since then there has been no rain. Also, we had lots of sun, and the temperature was unseasonally warm. The past few days had been sunny, with low humidity. Today, the temperature was 68-70 F and the relative humidity was 28-32%. The wind was out of the west gusting to 14 mph.

We had a crew of 8, five contracted and three volunteers. We assembled at 9 AM and got everything ready: water, drip torch fuel, rakes, our Kawasaki Mule with 65 gallon pumper unit. We did three burns: a small burn in what we call the Cabin Prairie, followed by the Barn Prairie and the Valley Prairie.

We could have burned all three of these prairies in the spring, but we had a particular reason for burning now. All three of these prairies have patches of a cool-season grass that we want to get rid of. By burning now, we give the "bad" grass a chance to get started early, well before any warm-season (prairie) plants are above ground. Then we plan to kill the grass with an herbicide: glyphosate. Since the prairie plants are not above ground, they will not be affected by the herbicide.

We have used this procedure to good effect in the past.

Collecting Little Blue-stem

Today we collected seeds of little blue-stem (Schizachyrium scoparium) at Black Earth Rettenmund Prairie. This was our regular monthly work party at this State Natural Area, and on a fine sunny day we had 10 people show up. Little blue-stem is a bit difficult to collect, as there are few seeds per flowering stalk, and they are scattered up the stem. In the past, we used a pocket comb to slide up the stem and loosen the seeds. This works, but is quite time consuming, since each stem has to be done separately. Today, instead, we collected together a handful of stems (the more the better) and cut them below the seed heads with a clippers. Later we will run the cut stems through a hammer mill to separate the seeds from the stems.

These seeds will be part of a prairie mix that we will use to plant areas of the prairie that are being restored.

We also collected a few other species whose seeds only mature late, such as sky-blue and heath asters.

The little blue-stem patch in the photo below has been thriving as a result of annual burns over the past five years.

Hallowe'en Burn

Although most of our prescribed burns are done in the spring, we try to do some fall burns also, especially in the savannas. Hallowe'en is about the first time in the fall when conditions are favorable. Today we burned three of our best savannas, Units 8, 10, and 11, about 14 acres. Conditions had been sunny and dry for several days, and today promised cool sun and lots of wind out of the north. A good stiff wind is important for savanna burns.

We had a crew of 8, and made use of the pumper unit that fits in our Kawasaki Mule. We cleaned up the fire breaks with a leaf blower. Although a lot of the savanna burned, the wind became variable, and some parts burned better than others. My quick estimate of the burned area is about 30-40% coverage. The photo above shows one of the areas which burned fairly well. However, we now have the perimeters of these units black so we can return again when conditions are good and do some interior lighting.

Seed collecting at Goose Pond

Goose Pond is Madison Audubon's bird sanctuary and prairie restoration area. Over 500 acres of high quality mesic prairie are currently managed. Impressive is the fact that virtually all of this restoration has been done by volunteers, under the expert guidance of Mark Martin and Sue Foote-Martin.

Every Saturday from September to November, whenever Kathie and I are free, we are collecting seeds at Goose Pond. This is where we learned prairie planting techniques, and we are eternally grateful to Mark and Sue for their willingness to instruct us. Even though we have been coming here every fall since 1998, we learn something new every time.

Today was a great day, bright and sunny, a bit cool and windy, but really pleasant out on the prairie. About 20 volunteers showed up today, some regulars, some occasional volunteers, and others visitors from afar. There were also university students putting in time so as to get extra credit for courses they were taking.

Today, we collected two major species, and one special one. The two majors were showy goldenrod and heath aster. The special one was cream gentian, a State threatened species that seems to grow moderately well in mesic prairie plantings. Finding it was a catch-as-catch-can event, because you never know when you will find a small patch. Four of us ended up with almost a full bucket of seed heads.

I have collected showy goldenrod at Goose Pond every year for the past 5 years. It is an easy one to collect, once you understand how to tell it from Canada goldenrod (a weed that, although native, is never planted). Showy goldenrod forms clumps of from 10 to 15 stems, each with a nice fluffy seed head. Although lots shorter than stiff goldenrod, with which it is often found growing, you can usually spot it if you get it backlighted with the sun. After a few years of collecting this species, you will never have any trouble recognizing it.

Collecting heath aster is more of a problem. This is another clump former, but grows even shorter, and on the mesic prairie is usually mixed up with a lot of tall grasses. Kathie recognizes it because each clump looks like a bunch of Brillo pads, rather stiff and rough. Most of the heath aster was setting seed but was not very fluffy, and when we cut it we had trouble keeping the Indian grass from getting into the bucket. After an hour, Kathie, Susan, and I each managed to get a bucket full. Hopefully, as it dries it will fluff up and Mark can get a reasonable amount of seed.

We can go home after our work day at Goose Pond, but Mark and Sue live there and must deal with the vast amounts of seed coming in from the volunteers. It is a major job at this time of year, since after the seeds are dried they must be cleaned. But that is another story.

Asters and Goldenrods

Susan, Kathie, and I spent most of the day collecting seeds of asters and goldenrods. We were worried that with all the rain we have been having, seeds would have been washed off, but we found some good collecting areas.

In some of our remnants we had nice populations of gray, showy, and Missouri goldenrods, and they were ready to collect now. We also found some nice patches of elm-leafed goldenrod, and although some seeds had washed away, we were able to get a reasonable amount. We also collected some zig-zag goldenrod, although it is still a little early for this species. Zig-zag goldenrod is interesting because we see it in the vegetative state quite early in the spring, but it does not flower until late September, and we have to wait until late October for seed collecting.

Two asters we collected were purple-stemmed aster (Aster puniceus) and smooth aster (A. laevis). The former, a wetland species, is really tricky, as when it is in good seed, it no longer has a distinctive look, and there is the danger of collecting less desirable asters such as frost aster or crooked stem. Since this species is easy to recognize when in flower, Kathie and Susan tied red flagging on each plant, making it easy to find.

Smooth aster was in great shape in the Pocket Prairie, and we got a fine yield. Although this aster is scattered throughout the Prairie, much better amounts are present in two forbs plots that Kathie created when we planted the Pocket Prairie in 1999. We concentrated our collecting there.

Another aster that we collected was arrow-leafed aster, a common savanna species. New England aster, heath aster, and sky-blue aster were not ready yet but should be in a few days. We continue to collect asters into early November.

Girl Scout seed collecting

On Saturday we had a great visit from Girl Scout troups in the west Dane County, east Iowa County area. About 25 Girl Scouts and 8 adult parents showed up in rather unsettled weather to collect seeds. Despite the rain drops, they forged ahead, collecting Indian grass and brown-eyed Susan in the Pocket Prairie. Everyone had a good time. By the time they stopped for cookies and juice, we had several buckets almost full of seeds.

This was a joint venture of the Savanna Oak Foundation, Inc. and The Nature Conservancy (TNC), and was coordinated by Steve Richter of TNC. This was the second time we welcomed the Girl Scouts. We are very happy to provide education in prairie restoration techniques to these young girls. The more people who learn about prairies, the better!

Thank you all!

A Prairie Remnant

Today Kathie and I had the opportunity of visiting a prairie remnant in the Driftless Region of southwestern Dane County. This particular remnant had been burned annually for the past five years and had responded dramatically. Even this late in the season we were able to see a large number of prairie species, some still in flower. One we particularly enjoyed seeing was aromatic aster, Aster oblongifolius, a somewhat rare aster that prefers dry rocky habitats.

I have been impressed with how rapidly prairie remnants respond to burning. Even if they have had no maintenance for many years, a few burns seem to bring out a wide variety of species. Of course, these species were already there, but had not been able to thrive under the dense thatch and the brush.

Planted prairies are nice, but prairie remnants are nicer. In a planted prairie there are few surprises. What is present is what someone included in the seed mix. A visit to a prairie remnant is like an Easter egg hunt. You never no what you will find.

Fortunately, the Driftless Region of southwestern Wisconsin still has quite a few prairie remnants, mainly situated on ridge tops on the "back forties" of many farms. Since these remnants are not good for grazing, the best thing for them is preservation and restoration. Let's bring them back to full glory!

Autumn Control of Garlic Mustard

One of the most serious invasive plants in southern Wisconsin is garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata). Fortunately Pleasant Valley Conservancy is free of garlic mustard, but there are populations not too far away that we are controlling. Our logic is that if we keep a wide garlic-mustard-free zone around Pleasant Valley Conservancy, we will less likely have to deal with this pest in the future.

Garlic mustard is a biennial. Most of our control is on the second-year plants, since these are the ones that produce seeds. The first year plants arise from the seed bank and remain relatively small, although by the end of the summer they are easily visible. This nonnative plant does not die back in the late fall, like most of our native species do, but continues to grow right up until winter. The late fall is an excellent time to spray these first-year plants with glyphosate herbicide, because most of the native species have died back and are not affected. Garlic mustard plants are still green and readily take up the sprayed herbicide. These plants will be killed and will not appear the following spring. Our experience has shown this is an excellent way to control garlic mustard.

Today Kathie and I sprayed a major area of garlic mustard infestation. We used 2-3 % Clear-out (a generic version of glyphosate) with back pack sprayers. We were pleased to find many fewer plants than we had in previous years, indicating that we may finally be getting on top of this particularly bad patch.

The "Wild Ones" Visit

The Wild Ones is a national organization of people dedicated to the establishment of native communities around homes and businesses using ecologically sound practices. The Wild Ones has chapters in twelve states, and has very active programs. They are strong promoters of the conservation of biodiversity. Today we had a visit from the Madison, Wisconsin chapter (photo below). The group was given the "full tour" of Pleasant Valley Conservancy, which takes about 2 1/2 hours. The weather was cool and breezy, but sunny. We spent quite a bit of time discussing seed collecting and planting, and the identification of prairie and savanna species. Few species were still in flower, placing a premium on identification of plants when in the seed stage.

Leopold Restoration Award

Last night at a very nice banquet at the University of Wisconsin Arboretum, Kathie and Tom Brock were awarded a Leopold Restoration Award. Details of the award

Seed Cleaning Day

The weather took a turn for the worse, with cold wind and occasional snow flurries. This was a perfect day for staying indoors and cleaning seed. Kathie and Susan spent a good part of the day in the Brocks' basement. We now have dozens of species, many of them in rather large amounts. Our basement is very small (really more of a converted garage), and it is important for us to reduced the volumes as quickly as possible.

There are three main steps in seed cleaning: 1) dry the seeds thoroughly; 2) reduce the volume by screening or hammer-milling; 3) remove the chaff. A separate procedure is needed for each plant species. Some don't need hammer-milling, some have little chaff, some are fairly difficult to dry, etc. etc. At the end of today, our basement was looking a lot better, and we had a large number of bags with clean (or cleaner) seeds. Some of these will be planted next month, and the rest will be stored in the barn all winter and planted in the spring.

We also are planning to raise seedlings in the greenhouse of some of the less common species, for transplanting out next spring.

I hope someday to write a tutorial on the whole seed collecting process. There are books that cover a lot of this, but often they are focussed on agricultural crops rather than prairies. Even those that deal with prairie seeds are fairly nonspecific. I have been collecting photos in preparation for doing this tutorial. Hopefully, before the next seed collecting season comes around (2007), I will have this tutorial done.

The White Oak Savanna in Fall

The White Oak Savanna has been under intensive restoration for about 8 years. Last winter we did major work to remove brush that had regrown since the original restoration work. This involved cutting and treating large numbers of small honeysuckle, prickly ash, buckthorn, blackberry, black raspberry, and red raspberry. This spring we had a very successful controlled burn. We are now gratified to see that our work has payed off. The White Oak Savanna has responded beautifully.

When we began restoration, there was nothing in this area except two very weedy savanna forbs, sweet cicely and tick trefoil. Today I did a brief survey. Species diversity was high, and many interesting species have now become established. In addition to the usual savanna grasses and forbs, the following were found: cream gentian and stiff gentian, both in profusion; lots of Culver's root; Indian grass; sky-blue aster; smooth aster; calico aster; sweet brown-eyed susan; showy goldenrod; elm-leafed goldenrod; gray goldenrod; Kalm's brome; purple milkweed; yellow and purple hyssop; woodland Joe Pye weed; etc. etc.

Nice to see that our work has not been in vain!