Contributing writer

Spring has come to Ebey’s Prairie, and several Whidbey Audubon Society members recently visited this Central Whidbey site to see what’s happening there in this new season.

“People who don’t know about it may think the prairie isn’t that impressive to look at,” said Sheilagh Byler, assistant site manager, as she prepared to lead the group on one of their field trips. “But the best time to see the prairie is now — May and June.” Prairie plants that are blooming now include camas, patches of white chickweed and spring-gold. Wild strawberry and buttercup dot the land, and here and there a chocolate lily nods.

Audubon members spotted violet-green barn swallows, and a crow flapped by while they were walking.

Au Sable sits on land that was part of Joseph Smith’s donation land claim, which includes five acres of rare Northern Puget Sound glacial outwash prairie that has never been plowed.

“This is a unique site, restoration-wise,” Byler said. “Many times, restoration has a strict timeline dictated in a court case. We plan on being here a long time. So we have the luxury of taking the time and simply looking at this land. We’re learning what we have here.”

A good bit of restoration work has started. Old game farm buildings are becoming housing and classroom buildings.

Game bird pens are filled with plants that grew from spilled feed. Elderberry bushes form a windbreak. Of the 30 acres of pheasant pens, 10 acres have been cleared.

The trail leads past conifer trees to the prairie. Byler crouched and pointed to a tuft of fine-stemmed grass — Idaho fescue. This grass and other prairie plants designate land as prairie.

Last year, some snowberry bushes were cut from the prairie remnant. While snowberry is a native Pacific Northwest shrub, it is invasive on the prairie. As people crunched over the uneven ground, Byler explained that while the snowberry plants were removed, the thick cover of moss wasn’t.

“Leaving the moss on lets native plants get started instead of weeds,” she said. As the moss dries out some camas wave up around the edges; bracken fern fiddleheads poke up farther in.

In another spot at Au Sable, a bit of land has been cleared completely, and a graduate student is there observing the progress of rare yellow paintbrush. A few greenish-yellow stalks stand out against brown earth.

Byler pointed out large dried stalks of bare-stem desert parsley, a relative of spring-gold. As the trail wound into the woods, Byler showed the tour members a place where a small orchid will flower later in the year.

Coming out of the woods, she led the field trip on a wide loop around a bird box where kestrels were nesting.

“Let’s give them plenty of room,” she said quietly.

“This is a great place for field restoration,” Byler said. “Many prairie plants are deep-rooted and may take five years to bloom. We have a wonderful opportunity to see what the prairie, and all our land, can do.”

The Au Sable Institute recently held its second spring celebration with a day dedicated to the prairie’s plants and birds, its history and its restoration.

The celebration was called “Camas Days” in honor of Au Sable’s “showplace flower.” Camas is a member of the lily family, and Native Americans farmed the prairie plant as an important food. This time of year, the purply-blue camas are blooming.