restoration

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A different sort of restoration

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A different sort of restoration

Recently I read a fun and fascinating account of a successful introduction of another lovely species with a great name to new, happy, and much needed homes. Please use the following link for this story concerning the starhead topminnow. And that photo on p. 1; isn't that a cute little fish? John Lyons and his "Topminnows For Tomorrow" team (this blog is full of great names and titles) worked incredibly hard over years on this introduction and then wrote a lively article on that process and its results.

Photo by Joshua Mayer

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Gentians, hidden gems of color

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Gentians, hidden gems of color

Fall in Wisconsin is a burst of colors, brightening and fading, with shades and textures unimaginable. Driving down the road, a fall scene plays outside the window; the prairie morphs from orange to yellow to brown and into red. Patches of color blend together, all warm, all losing their chloroplasts, anticipating a lack of sunlight in the coming winter.

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Burn Season

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Burn Season

If the photo above gave you heart palpitations: never fear. It’s burn season (and that’s a good thing!).

Burning is key for many reasons to the health of prairies and savannas. These systems are fire dependent. Fire renew fertility, spark the reproductive cycle of some plants, suppress woody vegetation, and control some invasive species. No fire = no prairies, no savannas.

Photo by Roger Packard

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Scenes from a Faville Grove Winter

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Scenes from a Faville Grove Winter

With the fluttery busy-ness of spring, summer, and fall absent, it can seem remarkably quiet at the sanctuaries. And true enough, plants are dormant and many animals have migrated away, hibernated, or found another way to quietly survive winter in Wisconsin.

And yet, the crews at our sanctuaries are as busy as ever. Winter is a time to focus on clearing invasive and “weedy” brush and trees. This is labor-intensive work, well suited for winter because the frozen ground makes it easier to get equipment in and out without damaging the soil, and there isn’t wild parsnip and garlic mustard to compete for attention!

Photo by David Musolf