Author: Linda Kervin

Linda Kervin is the voice for Bridgerland Audubon Society on Wild About Utah. She has worked as a research technician on a diversity of biological projects from birds to bees, agriculture to ecology. She spends as much time outdoors as possible, wandering the mountains with her dogs and tending her xeric garden. She also serves as treasurer for Bridgerland Audubon Society.
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Autumn Leaf Color Change

Fall color in Logan Canyon
Courtesy & Copyright 2007 Linda Kervin

In autumn, the days shorten noticeably and chilly dawns become the norm across most of Utah. Leafy plants now prepare for winter. Their summer of intense metabolic activities gradually give way to winter’s dormancy. Photosynthesis and respiration shut down as nutrients and sugars are withdrawn from leaves, to be shunted to the stem and roots for storage. But how do they anticipate the change in seasons so that they are ready for the rigors of winter?

Photosynthetic plants have a diverse array of pigments that they use to capture energy from most of the spectrum of visible sunlight. Chlorophyll is the most abundant, but its light gathering effectiveness is limited to a narrow band of the light spectrum. Plants employ many additional pigments to capture the energy available from other wavelengths of sunlight. These accessory pigments are brilliantly colored but masked by the sheer abundance of green chlorophyll.

Fall color in Logan Canyon
Courtesy & Copyright 2007 Linda Kervin

One of these pigments, phytochrome, serves as a timekeeper for the plant. When phytochrome absorbs energy in the red band of sunlight, it helps to activate a number of developmental processes in the plant. As the nights lengthen in the fall, there are fewer hours of sunlight to activate the phytochrome and so it transforms to inhibit those same developmental processes.

One result is that chlorophyll is broken down and its components are moved to storage for use in the following spring. Essential nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, are likewise withdrawn from foliage for later use. With chlorophyll gone, the other colorful leaf pigments are revealed. Now maples, aspens, sumacs and more blaze for a few weeks of riotous glory.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Credits:

Photos: Courtesy & Copyright Linda Kervin

Text: Linda Kervin and Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Additional Reading:

Chemistry of Autumn Leaf Color, How Fall Colors Work, About.com: Chemistry, https://chemistry.about.com/library/weekly/aa082602a.htm

Why Do Leaves Change Color in the Fall?, Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D., About.com: Chemistry, https://chemistry.about.com/od/howthingsworkfaqs/f/fallleafcolor.htm

“Autumn: a season of change” (2000) by Peter J. Marchand, https://www.amazon.com/Autumn-Season-Peter-J-Marchand/dp/0874518709

Where to see autumn leaves in Utah:

  • U.S. 89, Logan Canyon, Brigham City to Logan, Logan to Bear Lake
  • State Route 39, Monte Christo Summit, east of Huntsville
  • State Route 190, Big Cottonwood Canyon, east of Salt Lake City, including Guardsman Pass
  • State Route 210, Little Cottonwood Canyon, east of Salt Lake City
  • State Route 92, the Mount Timpanogos loop a.k.a. the Alpine loop, north, east of Provo
  • State Route 150, the Mirror Lake road, east of Kamas
  • U.S. 40, Daniels Summit, east of Heber City
  • Vernal, Red Cloud Loop (See Dinoland.com)
  • Flaming Gorge – Unitas, State Route 191 and State Route 44
  • State Route 132 Payson to Nephi, the Nebo Loop
  • State Route 31, the Wasatch Plateau, east of Fairview
  • State Route 12, over Boulder Mountain, between Torrey and Boulder (likely the most spectacular of all)
  • The La Sal Mountain loop, east of Moab
  • The Abajo Mountain loop, west of Monticello
  • The canyons of the Escalante River, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, southeast of Escalante

List sources:
Aspens and Fall Foliage in Utah, Jeffrey Otis Schmerker, 2001, https://www.utah.com/schmerker/2001/fall_foilage.htm
Ogden Valley Business Association, https://www.utahfallcolors.com

Fall Colors Tour, Utah in the Fall is a blast of color!, https://www.utah.com/byways/fallcolorstour.htm

National Forest Fall Color Hotline, 1-800-354-4595,https://www.fs.fed.us/r4/conditions/fallcolors.shtml

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Pinyon Jays

Click for larger picture, Pinyon Jay courtesy and copyright 2005 Marlene Foard - as found on www.utahbirds.org
Pinyon Jay, Tabiona, Utah
Courtesy and Copyright © 2005 Marlene Foard
As found on UtahBirds.org

Click for larger picture, Pinyon Jay Courtesy US FWS, Dave Menke, Photographer Pinyon Jay
Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus
Courtesy US FWS
Dave Menke, Photographer

Few birds have such a strong association with one plant that the plants name becomes part of the birds name. Sage grouse is one, Acorn Woodpecker another, but the Pinyon Jay is our topic today. Pinyon Jays are usually found in close association with pinyon-juniper forests throughout the Great Basin and the nutritious nuts of the pinyon pine are their preferred food. The blue and grey birds collect and cache pinyon nuts in summer and fall for later consumption. They have an uncanny recovery accuracy and excellent spatial memory, which allows them to rediscover these scattered caches and eat pinyon nuts all year. They do not recover all the stored seeds, however, and therefore aid in the dispersal of pinyon pines.

Pinyon Jays have a complex social organization and are highly gregarious. [https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections]

They spend their lives in large flocks of up to 150 or more individuals. Nesting is communal, although rarely are there more than 2 or 3 nests per tree. Breeding season is in late winter. Many birds spend their entire lives in the flock into which they were born.

Pinyon Jays are not migratory, but they tend to be nomadic; traveling to wherever there is a good crop of pinyon nuts. They will also eat a wide variety of seeds, insects and berries to supplement their diet and can be found in adjoining sagebrush, ponderosa pine forest and riparian habitats. The conservation status of Pinyon Jays is considered vulnerable. Destruction of pinyon-juniper forests for grazing and changes in fire regimes have resulted in loss of habitat. And what is a Pinyon Jay to do without its pinyon nuts?

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

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Credits:
Pictures: Courtesy and Copyright © 2005 Marlene Foard, as found on utahbirds.org
Also Courtesy US FWS, David Menke, Photographer
Bird Recordings: Kevin Colver https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections
Text: Linda Kervin, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Additional Reading:

Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus (Pinyon Jay), Fire Effects Information, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/animals/bird/gycy/all.html

Avian Cognition Laboratory, Northern Arizona University, https://www4.nau.edu/acl/index.htm

Pinyon Jays, Utah Bird Profiles, UtahBirds.org, https://utahbirds.org/birdsofutah/BirdsL-R/PinyonJay.htm

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Snipes Yipes!

Snipe, Heber, UT
Courtesy of and
Copyright © 2008 Kent R. Keller
As found on UtahBirds.org

The wild goose chase, the nocturnal tipping of cows and the snipe hunt are all good-natured tricks to play on gullible friends. Geese and cows are real, of course, but so is the snipe, a chunky relative of sandpipers. Its name may be the “common snipe”, but during most of the year, snipe encounters in Utah are anything but common. A few times annually, I flush snipe unexpectedly from the margins of a montane beaver pond, a patch of cattails along a suburban creek, or around valley springs and marshes, any wet place that gives the snipe mud that to probe for invertebrates and vegetative cover for camouflage. But come spring, the hunt for snipe is more hopeful, as I can listen for the male’s aerial courtship displays high above wet meadows and marsh margins. You aren’t likely to see him looping about at first, but when he periodically dives, the wind vibrating his outer tail feathers creates this distinctive winnowing sound:

[Audio: Common Snipe courtesy and copyright 2006 Kevin Colver available from “Songbirds of Yellowstone” https://www.wildsanctuary.com/the_wildstore.html and westernsoundcsape.org]

Common/Wilson’s Snipe
Courtesy of and Copyright
© 2004 Milton G. Moody
As found on UtahBirds.org

If you hear that sound near dusk or dawn, scan the skies, for you have found the elusive snipe. Wait a bit and he or his mate may perch atop a nearby wooden fencepost, a comical looking bird with its short legs and long delicate bill. A century ago, the snipe hunt was also real; market hunters devastated snipe numbers. Since then, snipe persist wherever their marshes, wet meadows and bogs have not been drained or filled. When next you are out someplace soggy to admire the spectacular plumage of spring ducks, remember to listen for the aerial display of the common snipe.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.
Credits:
Pictures: Courtesy and Copyright © 2004 Milton G. Moody and Copyright © 2008 Kent R. Keller, as found on utahbirds.org
Also Courtesy Digital Library, US FWS, Photographer W.F. Kubichek
Bird Recordings: Kevin Colver
Text: Linda Kervin, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Additional Reading:

Common Snipe
Courtesy US FWS Digital Library
W.F. Kubichek, Photographer

Wilson’s snipe, Gallinago delicata, Utah Conservation Data Center, Utah Division of Wildlife Services, https://dwrcdc.nr.utah.gov/rsgis2/Search/Display.asp?FlNm=gallgall

Diet composition of wintering Wilson’s Snipe.(SHORT COMMUNICATIONS)(Repo… An article from: The Wilson Journal of Ornithology by Jon T. McCloskey, Jonathan E. Thompson, and Bart M. Ballard, Digital 2009, https://www.amazon.com/composition-wintering-Wilsons-Snipe-COMMUNICATIONS/dp/B002HMJOUG

Wilon’s Snipe, Utah Bird Profiles, UtahBirds.org, https://www.utahbirds.org/birdsofutah/Profiles/CommonSnipe.htm

 

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Porcupines

Porcupine Quill
Copyright © 2009 Jim Cane

We address a prickly topic this week: one of the more intriguing and unusual mammals native to Utah – the porcupine. These shambling, large rodents would be defenseless if not for their dense cover of modified hairs called quills. Porcupines have about thirty thousand quills covering their back and tail. When disturbed, they clack their teeth in warning and raise the long quills on the back to form a random pattern that completely protects them. The quills are not hollow as some people believe. Porcupines do not throw their quills; an attacker must make contact. But once they do, the backward facing microscopic barbs on the greasy quill tips draw the quills into the attacker’s flesh. The short quills on the tail are particularly treacherous. In a split second tail flip, quills can penetrate the body so deeply that they disappear.

Porcupines range throughout Utah in diverse habitats. They are predominately nocturnal. Their diet is vegetarian. In spring they feast on leaf buds of deciduous and conifer trees and succulent ground vegetation. In summer and fall, they nip off the ends of branches to get to the leaves, nuts and fruit. Nipped branches frequently litter the ground under trees where porcupines dine. In winter, they resort to twigs and needles of evergreens and the inner bark of trees. This winter diet is nutrient poor and starvation takes its toll.

Porcupine in Tree
US FWS Digital Library

Porcupines are perhaps easiest to spot in winter when they may be seen high up in small conifer trees. Their tracks in the snow are distinctive. The foot prints are large and shows the whole foot. The belly usually scuffs in the snow and sometimes you can even detect the side-to-side sweep of the tail. So in these waning days of winter, remember to be watchful for Utah’s prickliest mammalian resident.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Credits:

Pictures:

Text: Linda Kervin, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Additional Reading:

https://wildlife.utah.gov/projectwild/newsletters/01fallwinter-gw.pdf

www.hsus.org/wildlife/a_closer_look_at_wildlife/porcupines.html

https://science-ed.pnl.gov/pals/resource/cards/porcupines.stm

Roze, Uldis, 1989. The North American Porcupine. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. Also available as https://www.amazon.com/North-American-Porcupine-Uldis-Roze/dp/0801446465