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EBEY'S LANDING
National Historical Reserve
NATURALIST'S GUIDE
Spring and Summer
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PRAIRIE
The three prairies in the reserve are among its most
unique features — displaying a rare combination of natural and cultural
history. A mile-high glacier receded 13,000 years ago, forming prairies
with rich soils. Indians farmed the prairies for thousands of years using
fire and digging sticks. Euro-American settlers followed and introduced
new farming methods. Today a third of the prairie land yields vegetables,
grain, forage, and seed crops. The rest is a mixture of pasture, woodland,
wetlands, and farmsteads. As you watch for birds in Ebey's, Crockett,
and Smith Prairies, consider the hedgerows, field patterns, and orchards,
too. These traditional rural features have cultural value, as well as
provide food, shelter, and nesting ground for birds and other prairie
wildlife.
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Plants*
- American vetch (N)
- Bare-stem parsley(N)
- Blue flag iris (N)
- Bracken fern (N)
- Camas lily (N)
- Chocolate lily (N)
- Columbia lily (N)
- Death camas (N)
- Fawn lily (N)
- Henderson's shooting star (N)
- Hyacinth brodiea (N)
- Lace-leaf biscuit root (N)
- Nootka rose (N)
- Northern saitus (N)
- One flowered broom rape (N)
- Prairie smoke (N)
- Purple snake root (N)
- Roemer's (Idaho) fescue (N)
- Showy fleabane (N)
- Snowberry (N)
- Tall oregon grape (N)
- Two colored lupine (N)
- Wooly sunflower (N)
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Watch for...
- American crow
- American goldfinch
- American robin
- Bald eagle
- Barn swallow
- Brewer's blackbird
- Chestnut-backed chickadee
- Golden-crowned sparrow (spring)
- House finch
- House sparrow
- Northern harrier
- Red-tailed hawk
- Red-winged blackbird
- Savannah sparrow
- Song sparrow
- Violet-green swallow
- White-crowned sparrow
- Black-tailed deer
- Eastern cottontail
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(N) = Native species
* Most of the native wildflowers and grasses found in this habitat
are now extremely rare.
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