Jim Cane, Author at Wild About Utah

August 25, 2010March 1, 2018

Dodders Not Daughters

Click to view Dodder in the Mojave Desert courtesy and Copyright Jim Cane — Dodder in the Mojave Desert
Courtesy & Copyright Jim Cane

Do not mistake dodders for daughters. Parents appreciate a daughter’s hug, but no plant welcomes the embrace of dodder. Dodders are relatives of morning glories and bindweeds. Imagine the despised bindweed minus its leaves and green chlorophyll, just a snarl of twining vine looking like orange spaghetti, and you have a picture of dodder.

Dodders gave up chlorophyll for a parasitic habit. The stem of the seedling dodder actively circles about daily, seeking the scent of a host plant like some botanical bloodhound. It then grows toward its host plant, clambers aboard, and soon abandons its tiny roots altogether.

Bumps along the dodder’s orange stem become haustoria. These organs penetrate the host plant to tap into its phloem. The dodder vine grows prolifically with this pirated flow of sap, smothering the original host and spreading to others. Agriculturally, only the imported alfalfa dodder was a problem, but today we can mechanically separate dodder seeds from alfalfa seeds and so avoid inoculating fields with this parasite.

Utah’s six native dodders attack a range of wild hosts, most commonly relatives of sunflowers. Other kinds of parasitic plants found in Utah include mistletoes, coral roots, broomrapes and the showy Indian paintbrushes. Other than the mistletoes, these are all root parasites. For some, the parasitic habit is merely optional, but for dodder, it is a way of life.

Dodder could be the basis of a botanical horror movie, but fortunately, infestations of dodder are uncommon and ephemeral in the wild, far more benign than some of the diseases and foreign weeds that disrupt our native plant communities.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.
Credits:

Click to view a larger picture of Dodder in Payson, UT Courtesy & Copyright 2010 L.W. Bingham — Dodder on Field Bindweed, Payson, UT
Courtesy & Copyright 2010 L. Bingham

Photos: Courtesy & Copyright Jim Cane
Courtesy & Copyright 2010 Lyle Bingham
Text: Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Additional Reading:

Pest Notes: Dodder, Pests in Gardens and Landscapes, University of California, UC ANR Publication 7496 https://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7496.html

Integrated pest management for alfalfa hay By University of California Integrated Pest Management Program, ANR Publications, 1981 – Technology & Engineering,
https://books.google.com/books?id=l7e5RvSPhkkC&pg=PA91&lpg=PA91&dq=dodder+#

Pests of landscape trees and shrubs: an integrated pest management guide ,Steve H. Dreistadt, Jack Kelly Clark, ANR Publications, 2004 – Gardening,
https://books.google.com/books?id=NEOLaUHPVdwC&pg=PA334&lpg=PA334&dq=dodder

August 12, 2010June 27, 2020

Virga: Teasing Rain

August is the perfect month to observe virga in Utah, for it is the monsoon season here. Moist subtropical air is flowing northward from the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California. When this warm, moist air is driven upward by convection and mountains, towering thunder heads result.

Below the bellies of these dark clouds you sometimes see grayish windswept curtains or streamers that do not reach the ground. Meteorologists call them “virga”, virga spelled with an “i”, from the Latin for “streak”. The word “virga” is absent from the prose of Mark Twain and the exploratory reports of John Wesley Powell because the word “virga” was only coined 70 years ago.

Virga: Descending Precipitation & Downdrafts

Virga in Cache Valley courtesy and Copyright 2010 Jim Cane — Virga in Cache Valley
Courtesy & Copyright 2010 Jim Cane

These picturesque virga are descending precipitation. One might guess it to be rain, but most meteorologists agree that it is frozen precipitation which is melting and evaporating as it drops through our dry Utah air. Like a home swamp cooler, evaporation in virga causes cooling which leads to the chilly downdrafts that accompany our summer thunderstorms. In the humid tropics, rains can be lukewarm, but our summer cloudbursts are goose-bump cold, owing to the same evaporation which yields virga.

Virga are a tease for parched summer landscapes, a herald of wild fires ignited by dry lightning, and a generator of dust storms as downdrafts scour dusty salt flats. But mostly, the curtains of precipitation that are virga are a fleetingly beautiful element of our western summer skies, well worth a pause and a picture, especially if you are lucky enough to see one accompanied by a rainbow or a fiery sunset.

Virga in Tucson, AZ Courtesy and Copyright 2010 Julio Betancourt, Photographer — Virga in Tucson, AZ
Courtesy & Copyright 2010 Julio Betancourt

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.
Credits:

Photos: Courtesy & Copyright 2010 Jim Cane
Courtesy & Copyright 2010 Julio Betancourt
Text: Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Additional Reading:

Jetstream, an online school for weather, NWS NOAA Southern Regional Headquarters, Ft worth, TX,
https://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/index.htm

Fire weather : a guide for application of meteorological information to forest fire control operations, Mark J. Schroeder and Charles C. Buck, USDA Forest Service, https://training.nwcg.gov/pre-courses/S390/FireWeatherHandbook
/pms_425_Fire_Wx_ch_01.pdf

The Book of clouds, John A. Day, Sterling, 2005, https://www.amazon.com/Book-Clouds-John-Day/dp/1402728131

Live Worldwide Network for Lightning and Thunderstorms in Real Time, Blitzortung, https://en.blitzortung.org/live_lightning_maps.php?map=30

July 15, 2010June 30, 2020

Spotted Sandpiper

An ancient Latin proverb declares that: “Nature abhors a vacuum”. Every naturalist comes to learn that Nature also loves an exception. Sandpipers are a good example. Coastal beaches bring sandpipers to mind, their flocks either loafing about the upper beach or manically advancing and retreating just ahead of the surf line. Every beachcomber can picture the scene.

Imagine, then, hearing this solitary call during your hike past some montane stream, lake or beaver pond.

[Spotted Sandpiper recording, hosted by Western Soundscape Archive, J Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah Copyright 2007 Kevin Colver https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections]

Click to view a larger picture of Spotted Sandpiper habitat Courtesy and Copyright Linda Kervin, Photographer — Spotted Sandpiper Habitat
Courtesy & Copyright 2010 Linda Kervin

That sure sounds like a sandpiper, but isn’t the context all wrong? Here you can trust your ears and not your experience. When the bird flushes and flies away on stiff shallow wing beats, you’ll see that the calling bird was indeed a Spotted Sandpiper, easily recognized by the dark spots that speckle its pale breast. This bird is sometimes called a “teeter peep” too, because it bobs its tail incessantly. Its an odd bird, for it is the male Spotted Sandpiper who tends nest and chicks, while the female busily courts other males. That’s polyandry and among birds, its very rare.

Unlike its more coastal kin, the Spotted Sandpiper is right at home in Utah’s high alpine habitats, just so long as it has shallow water and meadows in which to search for its invertebrate meals. Maybe the Spotted Sandpiper is not so exceptional after all, for the upthrust limestones, shales and other sedimentary rocks that compose many of our mountains were deposited under ancient seas that once inundated Utah. Perhaps the Spotted Sandpiper is just exceptional for its late arrival at that prehistoric beach party.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.
Credits:
Audio: Spotted Sandpiper audio courtesy and Copyright Kevin Colver https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections

Photos: Courtesy US FWS, Photographer Dave Menke
and habitat photo Courtesy & Copyright 2010 Linda Kervin
Text: Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Additional Reading:

Spotted Sandpiper on Utahbirds.org, https://www.utahbirds.org/birdsofutah/ProfilesS-Z/SpottedSandpiper.htm

June 17, 2010June 30, 2020

Nighthawks Go Boom

Click to view a larger picture; Common Nighthawk courtesy US FWS, Dr Thomas G. Barnes Photographer — Common Nighthawk courtesy US FWS, Dr Thomas G. Barnes Photographer

Birds gotta fly, and for that they have wings. But nature is a tinkerer, adding new functions to old adaptations, and so it can be with feathers.

Males of some birds make sounds during aerial courtship displays, sounds that do not originate in their throats. When these suitors periodically dive during flight, their modified wing or tail feathers vibrate like the reed of a saxophone, creating a hum that appeals to potential mates. In an earlier program, you heard the winnowing sounds of diving male snipe, and if you have a hummingbird feeder at home, you have been hearing a wing trill from insistent male broad-tailed hummingbirds as they display for prospective mates.

Today’s featured bird calls as it flies high overhead on our warm summer evenings.

[Kevin Colver recording https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections and https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections]

Those piercing nasal cries are made by Common Nighthawks as they sail effortlessly through the evening air on streamlined wings, their short wide bills agape to intercept flying insects. Periodically, this peaceful scene is disrupted by an unexpected booming sound.

[Kevin Colver recording https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections and https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections]

That was no bullfrog croaking, but the male nighthawk generating feather sounds during a brief nosedive. Their booming display is easily missed, leaving you to puzzle as to the source of such an odd outburst. It lends the nighthawk its other common name, the bullbat, like a bat in flight that sounds like a distant bellowing bull. No other Utah bird makes this sound. So as a fiery summer sunset unfolds, look for nighthawks peacefully plying the sky, and listen for their distinctive booming. We have waited all winter for such lovely moments.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.
Credits:
Audio: Kevin Colver, https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections
Photos: Courtesy US FWS Digital Library, Thomas G. Barnes Photographer
Text: Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Additional Reading:

Common Nighthawk, Utah Conservation Data Center, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, https://dwrcdc.nr.utah.gov/rsgis2/Search/Display.asp?FlNm=chormino

Common Nighthawk, All About Birds, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Nighthawk/lifehistory