The South Sound Prairie Quarterly Highlights

The South Sound Program has been working on prairie conservation for two decades. We work with a wide-range of public agencies and private landowners assisting with protection and restoration of prairies.

October-December 2014

Acorn Woodpeckers Respond To Restoration at JBLM

In the oak woodlands across the south Sound, including areas on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, CNLM staff and volunteers have been hard at work releasing oaks from the shade of Douglas fir trees, controlling weeds choking out small oak saplings, and clearing brush and Scot’s broom to lessen the severity of the restoration burns happening across the region. When a group of three acorn woodpeckers was first documented in mid-November in the oak stands on JBLM, many scratched their heads wondering...

Goodbye Webster’s: The End of an Era

On December 31, 2014 we officially shuttered the Webster’s native seed farm. This site served as the training ground for CNLM’s seed production program and taught us how to take a small volunteer powered nursery and turn it into one of the largest suppliers of native seed in Western Washington. In its final year Webster’s seed farm produced 460 pounds of native seed...

Pelletized Seed On The Prairie

This fall, one of our previous VetCorps members, Deston Denniston, showcased his passion and skill for restoration by creating pelletized seed for a large-scale seeding project with CNLM. Working together with Sarah Krock (previous CNLM Americorps and current ORISE intern at JBLM) , Deston and others seeded experimental plots...

2014 a Boom Year for South Puget Sound Streaked Horned Lark

2014 was a great year for the Streaked Horned Larks breeding on Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Data shows that nest success in 2014 was approximately 90% greater than 2013, resulting in the banding of 104 nestlings (up more than 50% than 2013). In addition to the benefit of increased nest success, the increased number of nestlings banded will strengthen our analysis of juvenile survivorship in years to come...

Welcome Gary Slater, Our Newest Staff Member

Have you seen an eastern bluebird or brown-headed nuthatch in Everglades National Park? How about a western bluebird on San Juan or Vancouver Island? If so, you have observed the conservation outcome of some of the work conducted by Gary Slater, who was hired by CNLM in late October as an avian ecologist...