Join us for our 7th annual Camas Festival! A potluck featuring camas (Camassia leichtlinii) based dishes and presentations and discussion of camas cultivation. Saturday October 25th 12-3pm at the Stevens Center of the Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. www.kwiaht.org/calendar.htm

"To recover the islands’ Julia Orangetips, could we simply plant more of their preferred host plant? Tower Mustard is native to the San Juan Islands, easy to grow and a part of meadow restoration projects being carried out elsewhere."

Our Camas Festival is moving to Padilla Bay this year! Save the date: Saturday October 25th for a camas focused potluck including a presentation by Sam Barr of the Coast Salish Youth Coalition on the revitalization of camas culture by Coast Salish youth.

More heritage apple events coming up in October! Our third annual apple tasting with the Orcas Museum is Saturday October 4th (12:30-2:30), and on October 11th we're joining the San Juan County Land Bank, apple ID expert Lori Brakken, and master orchardist Marguerite Greening for Apple-Palooza

The tasting scores for this year are in: Twenty Ounce was the favorite, followed by Esopus Spitzenburg and Glowing Coal. Our next tasting is Saturday October 4th at the Orcas Museum (12:30-2:30).

Some of the apples that will be at tomorrow's tasting with the Lopez Island History Museum: Belmont Esopus Spitzenburg Fameuse Gloria Mundi Glowing Coal Golden Ball Gravenstein (including Olga Red Gravenstein) King (of Tompkins County) Greensweet Northern Spy Twenty Ounce Wolf River

Can rediscovering heritage apples and sharing unique local seedlings help change apple culture in a way that values island orchards?

Western leafcutter bee (Megachile perihirta) taking off from a Cirsium vulgare (bull thistle) inflorescence near Cattle Point (San Juan Islands National Monument).

Do you need more ways to enjoy this years abundant crop of t’áqa7? We have added recipes to the Food Security section of our website.

We're raising funds through the San Juan Island Community Foundation to fund more apple genetic fingerprinting. To see some of the apples that grow in the islands take a look at this thread by our botanist @arbutocrat.bsky.social To donate to the project: sjicf.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/c...

Look for our apple table in the Ag Tent at the San Juan County Fair, and in the catalog of projects in the San Juan Island Community Foundation’s SJI Cares County Fair Program.

Kwiaht botanist @arbutocrat.bsky.social presents on local apples and community resilience for the San Juan Grange on July 17th theorcasonian.com/heritage-app...

Our 2nd annual Hummel Lake fishing derby starts at 8am on Saturday June 28th. Weigh-in ends at 4:30 and prizes are awarded at 5pm. Register at the WDFW boat launch on the day of the event. Contact [email protected] with questions.

Join Kwiaht herpetologist Christian Oldham at the Orcas Island Public Library at 1pm on Saturday June 28th to learn about ongoing snake research and the sharp-tailed snakes on Orcas and San Juan Islands theorcasonian.com/orcas-librar...

Kwiaht's hard working lab technician Matilda Twigg gets some well deserved recognition as she heads off to college www.facebook.com/100064773128...

Dasysyrphus intrudens, a common and widespread North American hoverfly, enjoying a meal of Fragaria vesca (woodland strawberry) nectar. Syrphid hoverflies like this one should be welcomed in Northwest gardens; their larvae eat aphids voraciously.

It's too windy! We're rescheduling the seine for Sunday June 1st.

We're seining at Watmough Bight this evening (4pm). Everyone welcome to help pull the net and sort fish.

Community science volunteer Anita Holladay documented an extensive Noctiluca scintillans bloom around Indian Island. Noctiluca is a native, non-toxic dinoflagellate; blooms are triggered by warm weather and nutrients in runoff.

Today is our first beach seine of the 2025 season with our Lopez Community Salmon Team. We'll be at Watmough Bight (Bay) around 4pm and everyone is welcome to help. Yesterday our community team at Cowlitz Bay counted over 2,000 juvenile Chum and Pink salmon and lavaged 5 juvenile Chinook.

Our juvenile salmon research season starts this coming week. The Lopez Community Salmon Team will be beach seining at Watmough Bight on Wednesday (May 14th) starting around 4pm. Everyone is welcome to help pull the net and see what the fish are up to

"Wildfire seasons are lengthening and intensifying, particularly in the western U.S. Parts of the eastern U.S. have seen smaller but impactful increases in fire weather days." 🌏

Orcas Middle School student Solomon Ross has been selected as this year’s Indian Island Youth Steward! Solomon is enthusiastic about marine biology, but he says that his real reason for seeking this particular position is his interest in people. theorcasonian.com/middle-schoo...

We are asking for donations to support our stewardship and research program at Indian Island -- in particular, our 2025 Youth Steward, who will begin looking after Indian Island on minus-tide days next month! You can donate through the Orcas Island Community Foundation May 6-15

@kwiaht.org is part of Give Big this year. We're raising funds for our stewardship work in the San Juan Islands.

Today (May 1st) is our first beach seine of the season with our Indian Island Marine Health Observatory! We use an 80ft net to sample fish in the eelgrass meadows. Fish are transferred to chilled aerated buckets, counted, measured, and then returned to the eelgrass as the tide comes back in.

We found two Kennerly clams (Humilaria kennerleyi) during the first day of our annual bivalve census with at Indian Island. These distinctively ridged clams are named in honor of C.B.R. Kennerly (1830-1861), the naturalist who surveyed island wildlife for the boundary commission in the 1850s.

This variety has been grown throughout the San Juan Islands since at least 1891. The large, green apples are excellent for baking, keep well, and add body and flavor to sweet cider.

Shore lupines (Lupinus littoralis) are in bloom at Cattle Point (San Juan Islands National Monument), and the Silvery Blue (Glaucopsyche lygdamus) butterflies are everywhere!

An Echo Azure butterfly (Celastrina echo) on garden bluebells.

Thanks to everyone who joined us on Sunday at Hummel Lake!

Big gratitude to everyone who helped out with our Earth Day work party at Hummel Lake!

If you got a "Brown Crab" from me in the last few years I think it is also this variety (we had two trees from Orcas genotyped, and I have them grafted next to my crab from the Brown orchard and they look alike and are all about to bloom!)

Bees do it! For solitary bees flowers are the place to find mates. Male bees hang around flowers and wait for female bees to come in search of pollen and nectar. Here one of our native miner bee species (Andrena barbilabris) take advantage of early blooming big leaf maple (Acer macrophyllum)

The first qwlhól (qʷɬáʔəl, Camassia leichtlinii) are opening in the islands. An important food source for native pollinators, qwlhól was a critical Traditional crop and where it now grows untended it is the legacy of generations of Coast Salish gardeners' stewardship of the islands' landscapes.

This weekend we have annual fruit tree scion exchanges and grafting workshops on San Juan and Lopez Islands. Saturday April 5th with the San Juan Island Grange at the Farmers Market from 12:30-2:30. Sunday April 6th with the Lopez Museum from 1-4pm (outside the Museum).

On Sunday March 23rd, Kwiaht director Russel Barsh is talking about the ecology of wildlife diseases in the islands at the Orcas Oddfellows Hall (3-4:30pm) theorcasonian.com/russel-barsh...

Want to know more about ticks in the San Juan Islands? Kwiaht and Lil Labs invite you to a hands on workshop this Saturday March 22nd at the Mullis Senior Center in Friday Harbor from 1-2pm.

One of the first to bloom, Olsynium douglasii (satin flowers) are just getting started at Iceberg Point (San Juan Islands National Monument)

Upcoming events in March! The Tides of March at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Eastsound on March 15th, nettle pesto workshop at Taproot Community Kitchen on March 17th, and a nettle focused Indigenous Plants Forum on Lopez on March 22nd. More info on our calendar www.kwiaht.org/calendar.htm

In the Salish Sea region, the distribution of this butterfly is very patchy, with significant populations found only on San Juan Island — mainly at Cattle Point — and the Victoria Capital Region on Vancouver Island. Cattle Point is crucial for the survival of this species in San Juan County

Some of the first ts'éx̲ts'ex̲ (t̕ᶿə́x̣t̕ᶿəx̣, Urtica dioica, stinging nettle) coming up under a q’émenilhch (or t̕ᶿθéʔəɬč, Acer macrophyllum, big leaf maple).

All of these recipes, and more, are on @kwiaht.org's recipe section of the Food Security section of their website www.kwiaht.org/Recipes.htm

Nettle season is starting! Here's a method for nettle pesto. I'll post links to my favorite nettle cake and some other recipes from the @kwiaht.org website below.

The first ts'éx̲ts'ex̲ (t̕ᶿə́x̣t̕ᶿəx̣, Urtica dioica, stinging nettle) are coming up in the islands! This video from the Indigenous Plants Forum on making nettle pesto includes a conversation between Nooksack linguist George Adams and Samish cultural teacher Sam Barr about the ɬək'wəŋínəŋ name for nettles

We're hosting a meadow-making workshop with Rosie Cayou's Indigenous Plants Forum on Sunday March 2nd from 10am-2:30pm on Lopez Island (meeting at the Kwiaht office to start with meadow field trips followed by an indoor session at the McCauley Farm). Contact @arbutocrat.bsky.social for more info.

Join us and our Indian Island Marine Health Observatory volunteers for the Tides of March. March 15th 2:30-3:30pm at Emmanuel Episcopal Church Parish Hall in Eastsound.

Happy Year of the Snake from Corra! Corra is one of the wild Sharp-tailed Snakes living on San Juan that Kwiaht herpetologist Christian Oldham finds visiting his array of artificial cover objects.