Author: Jim Cane

Jim Cane studies nesting, foraging and population dynamics of native non-social bees and their roles as pollinators, mostly in the Americas, through the USDA Bee Lab in Logan, Utah. His agricultural studies have focused on bees that pollinate blueberries, raspberries, alfalfa, squashes and almonds, in addition to the pollination needs of prevalent Great Basin wildflowers for farming and wildland restoration. When not working, he enjoys dogs, reading, cooking, contra dancing, hiking, birding and botanizing.
Posted on

Blue Orchard Bee

Blue Orchard Bee
Copyright Jim Cane

It’s early spring, the time of fruit tree bloom. Apricots, apples, plums, cherries, and pears will all need bees to pollinate their flowers. Traditionally, we’ve used the European honey bee, but now we know how to pollinate our fruit trees using one of our native bees, the blue orchard bee (Osmia lignaria). These bees fly nationwide.

In Utah they occupy many foothill and lower montane habitats. They aren’t social; every female is fertile and tends to her own tiny nest. Adults are active and nesting for only 3-4 weeks in the spring. These bees naturally nest in the tunnels chewed by large wood-boring beetles in tree trunks. Each female partitions the tunnel into a series of little bee-sized rooms. Each room is stocked with a bee-sized provision of pollen moistened with nectar, followed by a single egg. Nest cells are partitioned, and ultimately capped, with mud, a trait shared with other so-called “mason bees”.

Drill Log with 5/16 holes
5 to 6 inches deep
Copyright Jim Cane

You can have your own backyard population of blue orchard bees. One easy way to start is with a short fat log that is seasoned and dry. Take a 5/16 bit and drill 20 or more holes 5 to 6 inches deep. Stand the log on end, facing the holes towards the southeast.

On cold mornings, females bask in the sun before taking flight. If your log is colonized, then you’ll see steely blue bees busily coming and going all day long during fruit tree bloom. They tote their loads of dry yellow pollen in a brush of hair beneath the abdomen. Unloading that pollen at the nest necessitates some charming acrobatics, part of their undeniable entertainment value. Successive generations will nest for you every spring, but you’ll want to switch to better nesting materials to practice good bee hygiene.

A Colonized log
Copyright Jim Cane

Details and links can be found at our Wild About Utah website.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Credits:
Pictures: Courtesy and Copyright Jim Cane
Text: Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Additional Reading:

https://www.sare.org/publications/bob.htm

https://www.ars.usda.gov/Research/docs.htm?docid=18333

https://www.pollinatorparadise.com/Binderboards
/Hornfaced_Bees.htm

Blue Orchard Bee eggs
on pollen provision mass
in nest
Copyright Jim Cane
Posted on

Spring’s Earliest Butterflies

Mourning cloak butterfly courtesy and copyright 2010 Don Rolfs
Mourning cloak butterfly (pinned)
Photo by Don Rolfs 2010

Utah’s earliest solar collectors are smaller than a credit card; their carbon footprints are likewise tiny. They convert the sun’s energy to heat, not electricity, and they self multiply. I am referring to butterflies, particularly those that can be found flying on sunny days of late winter while our snow still lingers.

Our earliest butterflies transformed to adults last fall and have spent the winter wedged in nooks and crannies, such as cracks in deadwood or under flaps of bark. The butterflies’ names are generally more colorful than their appearance: red admirals, painted ladies, mourning cloaks, tortoise shells, commas and question marks. Their wing edges are scalloped and irregular, the topsides patterned or banded in tawny browns and muted oranges sometimes edged with yellow or red. Beneath, they tend to be camouflaged with patterns in shades of brown like a moldering leaf.

Satyr Anglewing butterfly
Photo © Jim Cane 2010

Being insects, butterflies generate little metabolic heat, so for warmth they quite literally turn to the sun on chilly spring days. Watch where they land and you will see them with their wings folded over their backs, their stance and tilt perfectly aligning their wings perpendicular to the sun’s rays. The sunshine that they intercept warms their bodies and enables them to fly even when the air is cold. Butterflies of early spring often fuel their flights with the sugars of tree sap where it leaks from a bark injury.

The mourning cloak butterfly is particularly recognizable, it’s rich brown wings edged with gold like gilt paint.

Red Admiral Butterfly
Thomas G. Barnes
US FWS Digital Library

If you see a mourning cloak flying among willows, watch carefully, for the females will be laying their tiny eggs singly on the tips of young emerging willow leaves. Like our migratory birds, the appearance of these early butterflies are living harbingers of the spring to come, a welcome sight indeed.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Credits:

Pictures: Don Rolfs
Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Painted Lady Butterfly
Thomas G. Barnes
US FWS Digital Library

Thomas G. Barnes, US FWS
Text: Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Additional Reading:

The National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Butterflies, Robert Michael Pyle, National Audubon Society, https://www.amazon.com/National-Audubon-Society-American-Butterflies/dp/0394519140

Peterson First Guide to Butterflies and Moths, Paul A. Opler, Roger Tory Peterson, and Amy Bartlett Wright, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, https://www.amazon.com/Peterson-First-Guide-Butterflies-Moths/dp/0395906652

Butterflies on Utah Bug Club web site, Utah Lepidopterists’ Society, https://www.utahbugclub.org/finding-utah-butterflies.php

Butterflies of Utah, Butterflies and Moths of North America, https://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/map?ds=45&_dcs=1

Question Mark Butterfly
Thomas G. Barnes
US FWS Digital Library

Painted Lady

Red Admiral

Mourning Cloak

Grey Comma

Milbert’s Tortoiseshell

Posted on

Calls of Two Common Owls

Calls of Two Common Owls: Great Horned Owl Photographer: Karen Laubenstein US FWS Digital Library
Great Horned Owl
Photographer: Karen Laubenstein
US FWS Digital Library

Societies and peoples the world over have harbored superstitious fears of owls. In truth, only small mammals and other like-sized prey should tremble in the presence of these fierce, stealthy predators. Most owls hunt by night, aided by light-sensitive vision and keen directional hearing. Most owls also call at night, and although not melodic, you can learn to identify owls by their calls. Today I will feature two common owls of the nine species that you can expect in Utah.

The Great Horned Owl is Utah’s largest owl, the size of a Red-tailed hawk. It’s correspondingly loud and booming call is a series of “who’s”.

[Kevin Colver: Great Horned Owl (Private Library)]

Great Horned Owls breed early, so expect to hear their hooting duets on our long winter nights. They hunt at night from a tree perch, swooping down to catch their prey. They primarily feed on rodents, skunks and other mammals.

Western Screech Owl courtesy and copyright 2007 Lu Giddings
Western Screech Owl
Copyright © 2007 Lu Giddings

My second choice is the Western Screech Owl, one of our several small owls. Its look-alike eastern relative makes a whinnying cry, far different from the Western Screech Owl’s own call, which sounds like a bouncing ball.

[Kevin Colver: Western Screech Owl (Private Library)]

These smaller owls all feed on mice, voles and large insects. The male calls at dusk.

With persistence and luck, you can see these camouflaged owls roosting in the daytime too. Check out flocks of mobbing birds. Crows commonly raise a ruckus around Great Horned Owls, whereas chickadees will fuss stridently around small owls like the Western Screech Owl. But listening at night remains the best way to meet most of Utah’s owls.

Thank-you to Kevin Colver for the use of his bird recordings.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Credits:

Bird Recordings: Courtesy & Copyright Kevin Colver, Western Screech Owl & Great Horned Owl (Private Collection), https://wildaboututah.org/about-us/#7loons
Pictures: Great Horned Owl, Karen Laubenstein, US FWS Digital Library
Western Screech Owl, Courtesy & Copyright 2007 Lu Giddings
Text: Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon Society
Voice: Linda Kervin

Additional Reading:

Great Horned Owl, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Department of Natural Resources, State of Utah, https://fieldguide.wildlife.utah.gov/?species=bubo%20virginianus

Western Screech Owl, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Department of Natural Resources, State of Utah, https://fieldguide.wildlife.utah.gov/?species=megascops%20kennicottii

Backhouse, Frances, Owls of North America, Firefly Books, 2008, https://www.amazon.com/Owls-North-America-Frances-Backhouse/dp/1554073421

For Children:

Yolen, Jane, Owl Moon, https://www.amazon.com/Owl-Moon-Jane-Yolen/dp/0399214577

 

Posted on

Waxwings

Cedar Waxwing US FWS FWS Digital Library, David Menke, Photographer
Cedar Waxwing
Courtesy
US FWS Digital Library
David Menke, Photographer


For the chance to admire a flock of Utah’s most rakishly handsome songbirds, look to the sky or trees when you hear this call:

[Kevin Colver, Cedar Waxwing, Songbirds of Yellowstone and the High Rockies…]

That high, thin whistle indicates waxwings. All winter long, waxwings stick together in dense, cohesive flocks that fluidly fly and forage as one. Like locusts, a flock will swarm over a mountain ash, juniper or hawthorn, quickly stripping it of the small fruits that constitute their diet. They eat a wide variety of small fruits from berries to grapes to cherries. Cedar waxwings are commonly seen throughout Utah all winter long. They are nomadic; traveling to where ever fruit is abundant. Some winters, they are joined here by their northern cousins, the Bohemian waxwings. Both waxwings are debonair, with a sweptback crest and an angular black Zorro mask. The name waxwing refers to a line of scarlet waxy droplets at the tips of specialized wing feathers. More likely you’ll notice the bar of lemon-yellow feather tips across the tail. Both of those colors come from pigments in their fruity diets. The body of the smaller Cedar waxwing is more caramel-colored than the grayer Bohemian waxwing. Bohemian waxwings have a distinct rufus patch of feathers beneath the tail.

Cedar Waxwing feeding on berries
David Menke, US FWS
FWS Digital Library

So remember to pay attention when you hear that high-pitched whistle and look around you for trees decorated with these snazzy-looking waxwings. They will surely put some zing in your drab winter day.

Thanks to Kevin Colver for the use of his bird recordings.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Credits:

Bohemian Waxwing Copyright © 2006 Stephen Peterson

Bird Recordings: Courtesy & Copyright Kevin Colver, Cedar Waxwing, Songbirds of Yellowstone and the High Rockies… //wildaboututah.org/about-us/#7loons

Pictures: David Menke, US FWS Digital Library

Courtesy & Copyright 2006 Stephen Peterson

Text: Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Additional Reading:

Bohemian Waxwings Copyright © 2006 Stephen Peterson

Creating Landscapes for Wildlife …A Guide to Backyard Gardens in Utah, https://digitallibrary.utah.gov/awweb/awarchive?type=file&item=10215