Jim Cane, Author at Wild About Utah

January 3, 2013June 30, 2020

Winter Song Birds

A Black-capped Chickadee, Bridgerland Audubon Society — A Black-capped Chickadee
Bridgerland Audubon Society

In the icy, short days of winter, you may think that Nature itself has curled up to hibernate. Our gardens are drab and deciduous trees are stripped down to bare limbs and twigs. Many songbirds have bid us farewell and flown south. In truth, what remains to be seen and heard of nature here in winter is more subtle and less boisterous. Now is the time to learn calls and songs of birds that reside here year-round, to hear them in solo performances, before the confusing springtime symphonies of birdsong.

This first bird calls its own name [sound: “Chick-a-dee-dee-dee” #9 Songbirds of the Rocky Mountain Foothills]. Black-capped Chickadees take sunflower seeds one at a time from our feeders. When out snowshoeing or skiing in our forests, inquisitive chickadees are welcome companions. They bring joy to a wintry day.

Frequently, a winter chickadee flock includes other birds. [Sound: “annk-annk” #48 Songbirds of Yellowstone] This bird sounds like a child’s squeak toy, but that nasal call belongs to the Red-breasted Nuthatch. Look for this chunky small bird at your suet feeder, or cruising up and down tree trunks in its search for insects.

We also have a minimalist in our winter bird repertoire [Sound: “tew” #62 Songbirds of Yellowstone]. That single note belongs to the Townsend’s Solitaire, which looks like a lean robin, colored the somber gray of an overcast sky. In winter, solitaires dine predominately on juniper berries. Their call stakes out their winter feeding territory. They are regulars at our heated birdbath, perhaps washing down all those puckery berries. If you are lucky, you may also hear their musical warbling, which is more common in warmer months. (Kevin Colver: Songbirds of Yellowstone)

You often hear chickadees, nuthatches and solitaires before you see them, as their plumage is neither colorful nor splashy. If you notice these calls on a winter’s day, it is because you are quiet and focused on the nature around you, leaving civilization’s hubbub behind. Thank-you to Kevin Colver for his wonderful bird recordings.

Credits:

Bird Sounds: Courtesy and Copyright 2008 Dr. Kevin Colver, Songbirds of the Rocky Mountain Foothills and Songbirds of Yellowstone and the High Rockies https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections

Text: Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon Society https://www.bridgerlandaudubon.org

Additional Reading:

Black-capped Chickadee, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, https://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Black-capped_Chickadee.html

Red-breasted Nuthatch, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, https://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Red-breasted_Nuthatch.html

Townsend’s Solitaire, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, https://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Townsends_Solitaire.html

December 6, 2012March 4, 2018

From Flood to Fire, Utah’s evolving role in mending rangelands

Restoring degraded plant communities has a long history on Utah’s public lands. The problem began with the transcontinental railroad, which enabled transport of livestock from Western rangelands to Eastern cities. By the late 1800s, vast flocks of ravenous sheep roved Utah’s unregulated wildlands. Montane summer pastures were stripped bare, so snow melt and summer rainfall washed across the ground unchecked, carving deep gullies. Downstream settlements, such as Logan and Manti, incurred ruinous floods and mud flows. Teddy Roosevelt responded to local pleas for federal control by designating our first national forests in Utah.

Soon thereafter, the fledgling Forest Service created the Great Basin Research Station east of Ephraim Utah. It was charged with discovering the cause of the floods. Within two years, large grazing exclosures were built in nearby mountain meadows by the Agency’s first range ecologist, Arthur Sampson. His research quickly linked overgrazing with denuded meadows, eroding soil and the floods. By 1914, Sampson advocated for rest rotational grazing. To then restore the impacted plant communities, there followed a landmark program at the Station to evaluate plants that could revegetate the degraded watersheds, and later, restore big-game winter range. Led by Perry Plummer, the Station evaluated the performance of 1000 species of shrubs, grasses and wildflowers, some tested in most of Utah’s plant communities. Methods to better collect, store, plant and germinate seeds underpinned the restoration of plant communities that, along with the 1934 Taylor Grazing Act, ended Utah’s frequent canyon floods.

That public research continues with the Great Basin Native Seed Selection and Increase Project. Today’s goal is to restore plant communities after rangeland fire, stalling and eventually reversing the invasion of flammable exotic grasses and weeds in the Intermountain West. Dedicated warehouses in Ephraim, Ely and Boise can store up to 3 million pounds of seed, a testimony to further progress in farming and collecting desirable seed. The seed is spread by aircraft over rocky places, while on gentler slopes, versatile rangeland seeders can place each kind of seed at the right depth, from tiny sagebrush to big grass seeds, all in a single pass over uneven ground. For every planting that takes hold, another weedy legacy of hundred-year-old overgrazing is finally repaired.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Credits:

Images: Courtesy & Copyright Jim Cane
Text: Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Additional Reading:

https://wildfiretoday.com/page/2/

https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/boise/research/shrub/greatbasin.shtml

https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/boise/research/shrub/projects/plant_guides.html

November 29, 2012January 1, 2019

Reseeding the West After Fire

More than 7 million acres burned this summer across the western United States. It’s the biggest fire year since 2007. In Utah, wildfires blazed across 450,000 acres, as much land as the urbanized Wasatch front. Most of these fires scorched basin and foothill habitats dominated by sagebrush or juniper forests. After a year or two, the blackened land will turn green. But shrubs and trees in these basin habitats are frequently killed by fire. Where these native plant communities naturally recover, it’s because perennial wildflowers and grasses resprout, and, like the shrubs, germinate their seeds. However, overgrazing a century ago impoverished many western rangelands. Aggressive weeds from Europe and Asia could then invade, such as tumblemustard, Russian thistle, and red brome or cheatgrass. These weeds outcompete our natives, multiplying with each fire cycle to eventually carpet the landscape.

To stem this tide of weed invasion after fire, land managers assist plant community recovery by planting mixtures of shrub, grass and wildflower seed. The shrub seed is mostly native, harvested from the wild by private seed collectors. The tiny seeds of several kinds of sagebrush prevail, often mixed with fourwing saltbush, shadscale, or bitterbrush.

The grasses are largely farmed by specialty growers. In past decades, these were mostly tough, competitive grasses from the Asian steppe, notably crested and tall wheatgrasses, and Russian wildrye. These practical, affordable grasses stand up to cheatgrass, but they also impede the return of the native flora. Today, half the grass seed applied after Great Basin fires includes natives, such as Sandberg bluegrass, squirreltail, Indian ricegrass, and bluebunch wheatgrass.

Use of wildflower seed has lagged. It’s challenging to farm yet costly to wild harvest. Today, a handful of innovative farmers are growing native wildflowers for seed, such as yarrow, Lewis flax, sweetvetch, two prairie-clovers, a milkvetch, and several penstemons. How much seed is needed? After the big fire year of 2007, four thousand tons of shrub, grass and wildflower seed were planted in the American West!

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Credits:

Images: Courtesy & Copyright Nancy Shaw
Courtesy & Copyright Bob Hammon and
Courtesy & Copyright Jim Cane
Text: Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Additional Reading:

https://wildfiretoday.com/page/2/

https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/boise/research
/shrub/greatbasin.shtml

https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/boise/research/shrub
/projects/plant_guides.html

Forero, Leslie, Plants Surviving Cheatgrass Invasion May Improve Restoration Chances, Study Shows, UPR Utah Public Radio, Feb 26, 2018 https://www.upr.org/post/plants-surviving-cheatgrass-invasion-may-improve-restoration-chances-study-shows

September 6, 2012December 30, 2020

Sunflowers, the late summer feast

Click for a larger view. Image courtesy and copyright Jim Cane — Stand of ornamental sunflowers
in Cache Valley
Image courtesy and Copyright Jim Cane

Honey bee foraging at sunflower
Image courtesy and Copyright Jim Cane

Male *Melissodes* bees and a skipper
butterfly sleeping on a sunflower at dusk
Image Courtesy and Copyright Jim Cane

Now, in late summer, the sunny golden blooms of sunflowers adorn gardens, roadsides and wild places across much of the United States. Utah is home to five sunflower species, four of them annuals. You are most likely to see Helianthus annuus, the aptly named “common sunflower”. Early domestication of common sunflower by Plains Indians led to the major oilseed crop that the world enjoys today.

Humans are not the only species seated at the sunflower dining table, however. The grub of one specialist weevil bores in sunflower stalks; as do larvae of 2 long-horned beetles. Another weevil hollows out the seeds. A third decapitates the flowerhead before ovipositing. One moth’s caterpillar gnaws the roots; several cutworm species topple seedling sunflowers, and several more kinds of butterfly caterpillars skeletonize sunflower leaves. In your garden, though, sunflowers generally escape pestilence. Chickadees and both American and Lesser Goldfinches cling to the ripe seed heads to pluck out the nutritious seeds. Listen for the plaintive call of the Lesser Goldfinch which is very distinctive.

[Lesser Goldfinch, Audio recording courtesy Kevin Colver, https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections: Songbirds of the Southwest Canyon Country]

All those sunflower seeds are the direct result of pollination by bees. In the American West, more than 200 species of native bees visit sunflowers for nectar or pollen, a remarkably large fauna for any flower. None is more charming than the male of the bee genus Melissodes. They are discernible by their extra long antennae. Melissodes males dart among sunflowers all day long, seeking willing mates. Come sunset, the males bed down on the flower heads to snooze. They become drowsy enough to pet with your fingertip, and being males, have no sting. So if you have sunflowers at hand, chances are you have Melissodes bees around too. Look over your sunflowers this evening, and you may be lucky enough to find these dozing bachelor bees with their extra long antennae.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Credits:

Audio: Courtesy Kevin J. Colver, 7loons.com and On Amazon.com
Photos: Courtesy and Copyright Jim Cane
Text: Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Additional Reading:

LeBuhn, Gretchen, Greenleaf, Sarah, Cohen, David, The Great Sunflower Project, Department of Biology, San Francisco State University, https://www.greatsunflower.org/

Charlet, Larry D., Brewer, Gary J., Sunflower Insect Pest Management in North America, Radcliff’s IPM World Textbook, University of Minnesota, https://ipmworld.umn.edu/chapters/charlet2.htm