Why not Purple Island?

Every year I get the question "Why is it called Yellow Island?" The question that should be asked this time of year is "Why isn't it called Purple Island?"

What makes Yellow Island different from most other San Juan Islands are the native prairies. The prairies exist because Native Americans burned the island for millennia, possible since the last ice age. The island in essence co-evolved with a human presence. The purpose of the burning was to keep the understory in check so forbs could flourish. Great camas, Camassia leichtlinii, was a food staple in the Coast Salish diet and the second most heavily traded item among coastal indians, second only to salmon. Today camas is still a dominant species of the Yellow Island ecosystem.

The Nature Conservancy has burned two to three acres of Yellow every year since 2002. The following photos illustrate how camas dominates just about all areas of the island, especially a year or two after a burn.

The north side of the island was burned in 2006. This photo looking east to McConnell Island was taken in 2008. The photo below was taken the same year looking south, up the north side.

The fall of 2009 the west meadow was burned and the photo below was taken the following spring.

September of 2010 the east meadow was burned resulting in this 2011 photo.

Even areas of the island that are never burned are dominated by camas. A planted garden area at the top of the steps was totally overgrown with snowberry. In 1995 the steward removed the snowberry and was amazed the following spring when a bed of camas appeared. The following photo was taken on May 11 this year.

After years of taking camas photos, the question I always ask myself is "do I need another camas photo?" Then you see one in perfect light:

Or one with a bee landing:

Or one with a hummer nectaring:

Or one in overcast light saturating the colors:

And then I look back and say "well the bee photo had too much depth of field, that hummer was too fast and isn't quite sharp, could I find one on an overcast day with more flowers per stem ..."  There will be reasons to photograph camas for as long as I'm steward of Yellow (aka Purple) Island.