Notes From The Field
June 15, 2024
Thanks to all who joined us in commemorating the opening of Cady Mountain Preserve this weekend, including former Land Bank Director, Dennis Schaeffer, who completed the first two acquisitions on […]
May 28, 2024
Eastsound Waterfront Park has been thrumming with activity this month! Over the week of May 20, third graders from Orcas Island Elementary School’s Outdoor Experience Program took advantage of low-tide conditions and spent the afternoon exploring […]
May 15, 2024
Golden paintbrush (Castilleja levisecta), is thriving this year on the Land Bank’s Cady Mountain Preserve. We counted 57 flowering stems on one particularly impressive plant! A fun fact about this rare beauty: it gets some of its food and water by parasitizing the roots of […]
May 5, 2024
A tremendous thank you to the volunteers that helped move – to quote staff member and event lead, Jacob Wagner – “a LOT of firewood” last Sunday. The firewood was excess from an eco-cultural restoration project on Mount Grant focused on forest thinning and was […]
February 8, 2024
Exciting news! Last week while staff and Islands Conservation Corps were thinning South Turtleback forests they spotted a Sharp-tailed snake (Contia tenuis)! Rarely seen in the islands – the first documented sighting in San Juan County was in 2006 – these shy snakes […]
November 27, 2023
Have you visited Turtleback Mountain Preserve recently?November 14, 2023
Over the past several weeks stewardship staff have planted Garry oak acorns and sowed native seed at Turtleback Mountain and Kellett Bluff Preserves. Garry oak (Quercus garryana), also known as Oregon white oak, is Washington’s only native […]
July 27, 2023
These smiling faces belong to the 2023 San Juan Island Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) who have been busy helping Land Bank Stewards, map and assess “big and old” trees along the northwest side of Cady […]
July 18, 2023
Good news for Golden paintbrush! In time for Endangered Species Act’s Golden Anniversary, a golden flower is recovered. Here’s the scoop from our partners, U.S. Fish & Wildlife: The Scoop.
June 14, 2023
Gravity finally caught up with this Doug fir snag along the road at Mount Grant Preserve, just before the Newt Pond Trailhead. Early this week, stewards noticed the tree had collapsed and was dangling above the road by a single root. They altered their work […]
June 6, 2023
Did you know a mature Scotch broom plant produces in excess of 10,000 seeds that can be ejected as far as 20 feet?! Stewards spent last week clearing the golden […]
May 24, 2023
The latest trail at Beaverton Marsh Preserve is coming along nicely, thanks to our tremendous Trail Blazer volunteers and stewardship staff. Once completed, this multi-purpose gravel trail will be an option for visitors to walk beyond Island Rec’s […]
April 27, 2023
Jenny DeGroot discovered salmon babies at Coho Preserve on Orcas Island! She notes “the white-tipped anal fin is a sure sign that another generation of Coho salmon are live in Cascade Creek!”
December 13, 2022
If Santa were ever to recruit humans for the North Pole, he’d do well to visit San Juan County. Volunteers and stewardship staff wore smiles and an extra layer (or two?!) while working in LSR (Land scape Scale Restoration) areas on Orcas and San Juan […]
July 19, 2022
The wild summer weather has kept stewardship staff – and volunteers – on their toes! Shauna Barrows snapped this pic of volunteers Bob Williams and Carol Jackson after last week’s noxious weed pull at Limekiln Preserve. That’s a lot of thistle heads in that bucket! […]
June 9, 2022
A bright spot in the crazy sun, rain, rain, rain, sun weather pattern is the formerly “threatened” native Golden paintbrush (Castilleja levisecta) are having a tremendous season! Jacob snapped this pic whilst working in the Garry oak restoration area on Cady Mountain Preserve this week.
Covered […]
March 2, 2022
Conservation Land Bank staff and the Islands Conservation Corps are having fun this week with “theme” plantings on Orcas Island. Over the course of three days a total of 2,250 shrubs and trees were planted.
Monday’s plantings at Turtleback Mountain Preserve included the berry producing […]
January 25, 2022
Last Friday these stalwart volunteer stewards donned their warmest winter wear and spent a couple hours picking up plastic and foam along the beach at Channel Preserve on Lopez Island. Their combined efforts filled a garbage bag, […]
November 8, 2021
The sun gleaned last Friday morning while Amanda, Shauna, and Jacob cleared creosote logs and deconstructed the old dock that had been sitting the field for years at the Spit at Fisherman Bay Preserve.
September 13, 2021
The signs of fall are popping up – mornings are cooler, leaves blanket the ground, and now, sheep graze the eastern pasture of Beaverton Preserve. Shephard Family Enterprises are the new lessees of the Preserve’s designated agricultural […]
July 16, 2021
In the last week stewardship staff dismantled two fire rings with wood and kindling stacked and ready to light on both Turtleback and Turtlehead Preserves. Your Conservation Land Bank and the San Juan Preservation Trust would like to remind visitors that wildfire is a […]
April 28, 2021
We caught a glimpse of this fuzzy wuzzy — Platyprepia virginalis — 
after setting out the first traps of the season for the WSG Crab Team: Green Crab Monitoring Program at Third Lagoon. The white stripe down the […]
March 11, 2021
Over the last two weeks our local Civilian Conservation Corps has helped stewardship staff plant close to 5,000 bare root plants and forbs on Orcas and San Juan Island Preserves. Stewardship coordinator, Erin Halcomb, captured […]
February 26, 2021
A recent visitor to Zylstra Lake Preserve alerted us to a Bald Eagle’s nest she spotted during her walk, so we checked in with Shona Aitken, Education Coordinator at Wolf Hollow Wildlife Rehabilitation Center on what to expect as spring emerges around us, and tips […]
February 8, 2021
Did you know that local, state, federal, and non-profit conservation land management agencies have a working group that helps coordinate and support each other’s work? The Land Bank helped establish the San Juan Islands Terrestrial […]