Clay

Kiosk (pictured at right)
N47 02.980
W96 26.519

320 acres

Dry prairie, mesic prairie, wet prairie, mixed emergent marsh, shrub swamp, calcareous seepage fen, lowland hardwood forest.

Minnesota DNR

Felton Prairie SNA

Felton Prairie WMA

Felton Prairie is a mix of Minnesota DNR, Clay County, The Nature Conservancy, and privately owned property within the beach ridges of Glacial Lake Agassiz. It protects a number of rare species, including plants, insects, birds, mammals, and reptiles.

The Felton Prairie Complex has been identified by the National Audubon Society as an Important Bird Area, one of 39 such sites in Minnesota. A number of birds with protected status in Minnesota have been seen here:

Endangered – Baird’s sparrow (Ammodramus bairdii), chestnut-collared longspur (Calcarius ornatus), Henslow’s sparrow (Ammodramus henslowii), Sprague’s pipit (Anthus spragueii)

Threatened – loggerhead shrike (Lanius ludovicianus)

Special Concern – greater prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus cupido), marbled godwit (Limosa fedoa), sandhill crane (Grus canadensis) (migration), yellow rail (Coturnicops noveboracensis)

Other birds seen here include black-billed cuckoo (Coccyzus erythropthalmus), bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) , dickcissel (Spiza americana), grasshopper sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum), Hudsonian godwit (Limosa haemastica), Lapland longspur (Calcarius lapponicus), Le Conte’s sparrow (Ammodramus leconteii), orchard oriole (Icterus spurius), snowy owl (Nyctea scandiaca), Swainson’s hawk (Buteo swainsoni), upland sandpiper (Bartramia longicauda), and willow flycatcher (Empidonax traillii).

Minnesota DNR

Minnesota’s Pine to Prairie Birding Trail

National Audubon Society

Several insect species with protected status in Minnesota are found here:

Endangered – Assiniboia skipper (Hesperia comma assiniboia), Uhler’s arctic (Oeneis uhleri varuna)

Threatened – Dakota skipper (Hesperia dacotae)

Special concern – Powesheik skipperling (Oarisma powesheik), Pawnee skipper (Hesperia leonardus pawnee), regal fritillary (Speyeria idalia)

The state’s best population of prairie vole (Microtos ochrogaster), a Minnesota special concern species, is on this prairie. White-tailed jackrabbit (Lepus townsendii) and whitetail deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are common here.

Western prairie fringed orchid (Plantathera praeciara), a federal threatened species and Minnesota endangered species, is found on the Bicentennial Unit of the Felton Prairie SNA.

Western hognose snake (Heterodon nasicus), a Minnesota special concern species, is found here.