Photo by Kim and Cindy Risen / www.naturescapenews.com
Prairie Home: Admiring its prairie nesting grounds, this Wilson’s Phalarope is but one colorful part of a vanishing ecosystem. Home to a rich diversity of birds, butterflies and plants, prairies once covered vast acres of the Midwest. While the prairies of old have all but disappeared from the landscape, several organizations have mounted programs to help restore and preserve the fragments of prairie that remain.

By Jake Kulju

On a breezy early summer evening, I stepped onto a gravelly back road in Washington County, Minnesota Light slanting through the smattering of clouds fell on a small but distinct natural prairie, one of few, that call the Midwest home. Some friends and I had driven down from St. Paul to find a place to gather seeds of different prairie grasses for the Friends of the Mississippi (FMR) (www.fmr.org), an organization dedicated to reviving the natural setting of the Mississippi River in Minnesota.

The FMR has an annual volunteer program for prairie seed collection. Several nature clubs, environmental organizations and prairie enthusiasts gather seeds each summer for prairie recovery projects. Information sessions about species identification and harvesting methods are available for novices.

Catch the rest of the story in the July Issue of NatureScape News!