Pawnee Prairie keeps Harrison County's tallgrass memory alive

Pawnee Prairie Natural Area gives Harrison County one of its best living-landscape stories. MDC places it in northern Harrison County and describes it as a relict island of the once-vast rolling prairie of northwest Missouri.

The phrase that sticks is simple: parts of the prairie were never plowed. That means some tallgrass prairie plants and animals survived there while much of the surrounding region became farms, roads, and towns.

The prairie is not frozen in time, though. Some parts are in restoration, and prescribed fire helps keep the grassland system working. Late May through early July is a notable birding window, with grassland birds such as bobolinks, grasshopper sparrows, upland sandpipers, and Bell’s vireos.

What looks like open grass holds an older Harrison County landscape. Some of it was never plowed, and late spring brings the birds and plants of that surviving prairie into view.