Jack Greene, Author at Wild About Utah

April 19, 2021September 17, 2023

The Glacier Lily

I find it difficult to leave my canyon home in N. Utah especially during April and May. Every day brings new bloom and bird song. On April 12th I returned from 9 days in Georgia for a family event. I quickly retreated to the canyon where I found spring in full bloom- spring beauty, balsamroot, Indian potato, locoweed, violet and perhaps my favorite, the glacier lily. It often appears at the edge of receding snow banks.

Mother Grizzly Bear and Cubs in Yellowstone National Park Courtesy USGS Frank T. van Manen, Photographer — Mother Grizzly Bear and Cubs in Yellowstone National Park
Courtesy USGS
Frank T. van Manen, Photographer

Its delicate beauty is a favorite early season food of the grizzly bear. Bears “till” up the land, turning over chunks of soil to access their tasty bulb. Glacier National Park scientists have learned that this “tilling” has some important side effects. Areas with recent bear diggings have less plant diversity and higher nitrogen levels than undisturbed parts of the landscape. Without much competition from other plants, glacier lily bulbs can quickly regenerate, and these new lilies produce twice the usual number of seeds, thanks to the nitrogen rich soil!

After digging up glacier lilies, bears often leave the bulbs for a few days to wilt in the sun. This “cooks” them a bit making them sweeter and easier to digest. First Nations lore shows that early peoples learned to dry and cook glacier lily bulbs by copying the grizzly. Black bears relish the bulbs as well while Elk and deer munch the foliage.

The Shoshone ate the corms fresh or with soup, and the dried bulbs were a popular trade item between tribes. The leaves are edible as well and the green seedpods taste like green beans when cooked. Medical applications include reducing fever, swelling, infection, and they were used as a contraceptive. The glacier lily was collected during the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Meriwether Lewis mentioned this species numerous times in his journal. This may be because he thought it could be used as a “botanical calendar” to help track the onset of spring.

Glacier lilies are very sensitive to disturbance and harvesting the corm will effectively kill the plant. Though native tribes practiced active management of them, their populations have been greatly reduced. It is better to leave collection to wildlife.

“The snow is melting. The grizzly bears that have been sleeping beneath the snow, suspended like seeds, will prowl the warm fields just beneath the snow, grazing on the delicious emerging lilies. Sometimes the yellow pollen gets caught on the fur and snouts of the great golden bears as they grub and push through the lily fields, pollinating other lilies in this manner. In this crude fashion, they are famers of a kind, nurturing and expanding one of the crops that first meets them each year. The lilies follow the snow, and the snow pulls back to reveal the bears, and the bears follow the Lilies. The script of life begins moving with enthusiasm once again.” Rick Bass, author, naturalist, activist.

Jack Greene for Bridgerland Audubon Society and you guessed it- I’m wild about Utah, and its long lost grizzlies

Credits:

Images: Courtesy & © Andrea Liberatore
Bear image: Courtesy USGS, Frank T van Manen, Photographer
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright © Kevin Colver, https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections/kevin-colver
Text: Jack Greene, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading:

Glacier Lily — Erythronium grandiflorum. Montana Field Guide. Montana Natural Heritage Program. Retrieved on April 18, 2021, from https://FieldGuide.mt.gov/speciesDetail.aspx?elcode=PMLIL0U050

Alberty, Erin, Wasatch wildflower update: Early blooms emerging in low places, The Salt Lake Tribune, March 22, 2017, https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=5090577&itype=CMSID

Rey-Vizgirdas, Edna, Forest Botanist, Boise National Forest, Yellow Avalanche-lily (Erythronium grandiflorum), Forest Management, Rangelands Management, & Vegetation Ecology Programs, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/erythronium_grandiflorum.shtml

McConnell, Tatum, Vital Ground Communications Intern, How Grizzly Bear Digging Shapes Mountain Meadows, The Vital Ground Foundation, https://www.vitalground.org/grizzly-ecology-bears-and-dirt/

March 15, 2021March 4, 2026

Great Horned Owl

No, I did not hear the owl call my name- meaning my number is up and death is imminent according to some native tribes. But I do hear them call. The great horned owl is also referred to as the “hoot owl”. There are few owl species that hoot in our area, and those who do so are extremely rare.

Great horned owls are great in stature- second only to great grays among N. American owls. Further, they are fierce predators and valiant protectors of their young. Don’t mess with their nest!

Great Horned Owl Chick Courtesy US FWS Gary Stolz, Photographer — Great Horned Owl Chick
Courtesy US FWS
Gary Stolz, Photographer

Due to its ferocious nature it is often referred to as the “Tiger of the Air”. When established in a territory, the Great Horned Owls drive other owls away, and may eat a few for good measure. They are both nocturnal and diurnal hunters, especially during the breeding season & when they are raising their young. They have a large variety of prey including insects, most small mammals including skunks, foxes, domestic cats, & birds up to size of herons and Redtail hawks. Its prey can often weigh up to 3 times the weight of bird itself.

Bryce King and Michelle Groncki with Winston, a Young Great Horned Owl at the Ogden Nature Center, May 16, 2018 Courtesy & © Lyle Bingham, Photographer — Bryce King and Michelle Groncki with Winston, a Young Great Horned Owl at the Ogden Nature Center, May 16, 2018
Courtesy & © Lyle Bingham, Photographer

The Great Horned Owl is found throughout the Americans, from Alaska & Northern Canada down to the southern most tip of South America. It’s found in woodlands, mountains, deserts, coastal swamps, and urban areas which make it unique amongst owls. There was a pair nesting near the Logan Tabernacle for many years. There is only a single species of Great Horned Owl, though there are a large number of subspecies.

Great Horned owls are often monogamous. They usually nest in old nests made by other raptors, often by Red-Tailed Hawks. They have been known to nest in caves, on cliff ledges, rocky outcrops and in cactuses. They usually start breeding very early in comparison to most owls, often from December to March when hooting reaches its peak.

Winston, a Young Great Horned Owl hopped up on Michelle Groncki's Shoulder May 16, 2018 Courtesy & © Lyle Bingham, Photographer — Winston, a Young Great Horned Owl hopped up on Michelle Groncki’s Shoulder, May 16, 2018
Courtesy & © Lyle Bingham, Photographer

In the wild the life expectancy of Great Horned Owl is from 15 to 20yrs. In captivity, their lifespan is usually from 25 to 30yrs, with the oldest recorded individual reaching 42 years. The Ogden Nature Center had an owl named Chitters, who was near 40 years before its spirit flew off. During its long life as an educational bird, Chitters entertained thousands of students in the Ogden, Davis, and Weber school districts.

Several American Indian tribes believe owls are associated with the souls of the dead. When a virtuous person died, they would become a Great Horned Owl. If wicked, they would become a Barn Owl. The Hopis Indians believed that the Great Horned Owl helped their peaches grow. They were believed to be a symbol of divine wisdom by Creek Indians.

I’m sure glad to have these divine, wise birds in my neighborhood!

Great Horned Owl Courtesy US FWS, Karen Laubenstein, Photographer — Great Horned Owl
Courtesy US FWS, Karen Laubenstein, Photographer

Jack Greene for Bridgerland Audubon Society, and I’m wild about Utah!

Credits:

Images: Courtesy US FWS
Audio: Contains Audio Courtesy and Copyright J. Chase and K.W. Baldwin https://upr.org
Text: Jack Greene, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading:

Ogden Nature Center, Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, US Fish & Wildlife Service, US Bureau of the Interior, https://www.fws.gov/nwrs/threecolumn.aspx?id=2147485206 Last Updated: May 18, 2012

Wright, Becky, Beloved owl ‘Chitters’ at Ogden Nature Center dies, Ogden Standard Examiner, Mar 18, 2013, https://www.standard.net/lifestyle/beloved-owl-chitters-at-ogden-nature-center-dies/article_5f57019c-7279-587e-9983-7b4f5a2d2a48.html

Great Horned Owl, All About Birds, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Great_Horned_Owl/overview

January 18, 2021September 17, 2023

Common Starlings

It all began so innocently. Let’s bring over a few European starlings to add authenticity for a Shakespearean theatrical. That was 1890. Today, North America has about half of the world population of starlings, approaching a few hundred million.

Following many years of demonizing this bird, I have become convinced they do have value beyond compost. In fact, they are utterly fascinating. My first glimmer came when a friend suggested I read “Arnie, the Darling Starling”. I have yet to read it, but he convinced me this bird was worth taking a second look.

European Starling, Sturnus vulgaris, Courtesy & © Hilary Shughart, Photographer — European Starling, Sturnus vulgaris,
Courtesy & © Hilary Shughart, Photographer”

Since that time in the mid 70’s, I’ve witnessed many of the starling’s remarkable behaviors. It possesses a maddening ability to imitate other birds- killdeer, red tail hawk, evening grosbeak, etc., with such accuracy I always stop to look for a killdeer perched in a tree- gotcha Jack! The starling’s gift for mimicry has long been recognised. Mozart had a pet starling which could sing part of his Piano Concerto in G Major. He became very attached to the bird and arranged an elaborate funeral for it when it died three years later.

Starlings are commonly kept as pets in Europe and widely used as laboratory animals, second only to pigeons. Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz wrote of them in his book King Solomon’s Ring as “the poor man’s dog” and “something to love”. Their inquisitiveness makes them easy to train or study.

Starling Murmuration Courtesy Wikimedia and Copyright Walter Baxter Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license — Starling Murmuration
Courtesy Wikimedia and Copyright Walter Baxter
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license

I’ve always been amazed by their immense winter flocks called murmurations- thousands of birds reminiscent of what the now extinct passenger pigeons must have resembled, and for these massive bird clouds to change form and direction in milliseconds, which I observed when a merlin falcon plummeted into an enormous flock that split in half. I stood in disbelief as the cloud morphed, then saw the merlin emerge just below the bifurcated cloud.

The starling has 12 subspecies breeding in open habitats across its native range in temperate Europe to western Mongolia, and it has been introduced to seven other countries from Australia to Fiji.

Major declines in populations have occurred from 1980 onward in much of Europe and Eurasia. The decline appears to be caused by intensive farming methods used in northern Europe, and the reduced supply of grassland invertebrates needed for the nestlings. This in contrast to 1949, when so many starlings landed on the clock hands of London’s Big Ben that it stopped the clock!
Our love hate starling relationships are evident in how various countries view them. In Spain, starlings are hunted commercially as a food item. In France, it is classified as a pest, and can be killed throughout most of the year. In Great Britain, Starlings are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act. In 2008, the United States government killed 1.7 million starlings, the largest number of any nuisance species to be culled.

A closing note- starlings are trapped for food in some Arab countries. The meat is tough and of low quality, so it is casseroled or made into pâté. Even when correctly prepared, it may still be seen as an acquired taste. You may wish to remove them from your grocery list.

Jack Greene for Bridgerland Audubon Society, and I’m wild about Utah’s not so wild starlings!

Credits:

Pictures: Courtesy US FWS, Dave Menke, Photographer
Pictures: Courtesy US FWS, Lee Karney, Photographer
Pictures: Courtesy Wikimedia and Copyright Walter Baxter, Photographer (Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Starling_murmuration.jpg
Audio: Courtesy & © Kevin Colver https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections
Text: Jack Greene, Jack Greene, Bridgerland Audubon Society & Utah State University Sustainability
Additional Links: Lyle Bingham, Webmaster, Bridgerland Audubon Society, Wild About Utah,

Additional Reading:

Grant, Val, Short-tailed Bird of Perdition-Starlings, Wild About Utah, June 5, 2009, https://wildaboututah.org/short-tailed-bird-of-perdition-starlings/

European Starling, Sturnus vulgaris, Julia Butler Hansen Refuge, US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Department of the Interior, https://www.fws.gov/refuge/julia_butler_hansen/wildlife_and_habitat/habitats/birds/european_starling.html

King, Barbara J., Video: Swooping Starlings In Murmuration, National Public Radio (NPR), January 4, 2017 2:29 PM ET, https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/01/04/506400719/video-swooping-starlings-in-murmuration

European Starling, BirdWeb, https://www.birdweb.org/birdweb/bird/european_starling

Sigl Corbo, Margarete(Author), Barras, Diane Marie(Author), Morrill, Leslie(Illustrator), Arnie, the Darling Starling, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, November 1, 1983, https://www.amazon.com/Arnie-Darling-Starling-Margarete-Corbo/dp/0395343909

December 21, 2020January 31, 2026

Juncos

I first became aware of dark eyed juncos while doing fieldwork for the USFS in Montana. My young children discovered an active nest on the ground near a mountain stream. This was before my birding days. It occurred to me this was a strange place for a small, sparrow sized bird to build a nest, giving predators the advantage. Yet they flourish, and are among the most common and prolific songbirds in north America.

Juncos: Dark-eyed 'Oregon' Junco Male, Junco hyemalis montanus, Courtesy and copyright 2008 Ryan P. O'Donnell, Photographer — Dark-eyed ‘Oregon’ Junco Male, Junco hyemalis montanus, Courtesy and copyright 2008 Ryan P. O’Donnell, Photographer

Now, many years later, I enjoy them at my feeder as they migrate down from the high country to winter in my backyard. I’ve found them to be very chatty with constant vocalizations being exchanged. A friend spent her PhD work on their chatter and discovered 23 sound variations representing different messages. I’m guessing there are many more if one includes nonverbal means of communicating and possible notes beyond our range of hearing.

Another fascinating discovery was how different individual juncos were as I handled those captured in a mist net for banding purposes. Some were quite belligerent biting and struggling throughout the experience. Others were very docile. I imagined them to be smiling throughout the ordeal.

The Dark-eyed Junco can be found across the continent, from Alaska to Mexico, from California to New York. A recent estimate set the junco’s total population at approximately 630 million individuals, about double the U.S. human population.

Belonging to the sparrow family Passerellidae, Junco systematics are still confusing after decades of research, with various authors accepting between three and 12 species. There is a huge range of geographic variation in the Dark-eyed Junco. Among the 15 described races, six forms are easily recognizable in the field and five used to be considered separate species until the 1980s.

Primarily ground feeders, in winter they become highly social often foraging in flocks, evident as masses attack my feeder, and each other! Their breeding habitat is coniferous or mixed forest areas, ranging from subarctic taiga to high-altitude mountain forests in Mexico and Central America south to Panama. The Oregon Dark-eyed Junco, along with the Slate-colored, are the two most widely known subspecies.

The oldest recorded Dark-eyed Junco was at least 11 years, 4 months old when it was recaptured and rereleased during banding operations in West Virginia in 2001.

Juncos are described as “happy, bubbly, little birds that are a joy to watch”. All races and species share a pink bill as well as pink legs, a reminder that no matter how different two things look, they are not all that different on the inside. Please enjoy your juncos and happy holidays!

Jack Greene for Bridgerland Audubon Society, and I’m always wild about wild things in Utah!

Credits:

Nest Picture: Courtesy US FWS, Carla Stanley, Photographer
Junco Picture: Courtesy & © Ryan P O’Donnell, Photographer
Audio: Courtesy and Copyright Kevin Colver
Text: Jack Greene, Bridgerland Audubon Society
Additional Reading: Lyle W Bingham, Webmaster

Additional Reading:

Liberatore, Andrea, Dark-Eyed Juncos, Wild About Utah, January 12, 2012, https://wildaboututah.org/dark-eyed-juncos/

Greene, Jack, Seasonal Changes and Amazing Adaptations, Wild About Utah, Nov 9, 2015, https://wildaboututah.org/seasonal-changes-amazing-adaptations/

Atwell, J.W., O’Neal, D.M, and Ketterson, E.D. (2011) Animal Migration as a Moving Target for Conservation: Intra-species Variation and Responses to Environmental Change, as Illustrated in a Sometimes Migratory Songbird. Environmental Law. Vol. 41:289 p. 289-319, https://www.amazon.com/Animal-migration-moving-target-conservation/dp/B005C29H7I

Alderfer, Jonathan (editor) (2005) National Geographic Complete Book of Birds. National Geographic Press. Dark-eyed junco information available online at: https://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birding/dark-eyed-junco/

Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds: Dark-eyed Junco. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Dark-eyed_Junco/id/ac

History of Name Changes for Juncos. Cornell Lab of Ornithology. https://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw/News/junco_taxonomy.pdf