Mary Heers, Author at Wild About Utah

October 26, 2026October 26, 2026

Search and Find

Man Training Dog, Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer — Man Training Dog
Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer

A few years ago, I agreed to take care of my cousins’ dog Molly while they went on a trip. When they dropped Molly off, they mentioned she was “ball crazy.” They took out a tennis ball and threw it over the house. Molly took off like a shot. Two minutes later she came trotting back and dropped the ball at my feet. “Again?” she seemed to ask. Searching and finding that ball all day long couldn’t have made Molly any happier.

As far back as the Middle Ages, monks in the Saint Bernard monastery in the Swiss Alps discovered how helpful their dogs could be searching for travelers who had become lost in the mountains. In the 17th century, one of their specially bred St. Bernard rescue dogs, Barry, was credited with saving over 40 lives. By 1909, NYC police added a German Shepard, Max, to their search and rescue team.Now, in Cache Valley, there are 4 certified volunteer search and rescue dogs and their handlers working with the local law enforcement.

I was lucky to meet one of these four teams last weekend. Glen Gantz and his dog Moki were training at an empty outdoor lot in Logan. Glen had put a small tin can loaded with a bit of scent on the gravel covered ground. He then kicked enough gravel over the can to hide it from view.

Moki was raring to go. The command to search came from Glen and Moki took off. He circled the perimeter with his head up, and soon caught the scent. A few more seconds and Moki was lying down, his front paws and head pointing at the tin can. Glen acknowledged the successful find with a BIG shout out, “Good Boy!” Moki jumped up and came racing over to Glen for an extra round of praise and a small tasty treat. Then Glen pulled out Moki’s favorite toy and the two played their beloved game of tug of war.

I felt a bit honored to get this close up view of how much enjoyment a dog and his handler could get from working together as a team. I had once talked to a man whose dog would go into the forest with him to find truffles. The dog could smell these tasty fungi growing among the tree roots under the ground. The dog would paw the ground exactly where the man should dig. In the past, truffle hunters had used pigs to sniff out the truffles. The pigs were very good at locating the truffles and digging them up. The problem was preventing the pigs from eating them. He said you used to be able to identify a truffle hunter by how many fingers they were missing. The dogs were a much better team-mate.

A dog’s nose is said to be as much as 100,000 times as sensitive to smell as a human. A human has about 5 million scent receptors . A dog has over 125 million. When it comes time for a search for a lost person, nothing works better than a dog’s nose.

So when a 16 year old was reported missing in Hyrum, Glen and Moki were called in to help. Moki was given his scent and followed the trail. Four hours later, the trail ended at the edge of Hyrum Dam. Sadly, the boy was not found alive, but the family was able to retrieve the body, which meant a great deal to them.

So for our listeners who love to hike in our beautiful mountains, be careful. But know, should you need help, there are 4 certified search and rescue dog teams in the valley that are constantly training to improve their skills. They will come looking, and they will find you.

This is Mary Heers and I’m Wild About Utah.

Credits:
Picture: Courtesy Mary Heers, Photographer
Audio: Courtesy & © Anderson, Howe, and Wakeman
Voice & Text: Mary Heers
Additional Reading:

https://utahsheriffs.org/resources/search-and-rescue

September 28, 2026September 28, 2026

Bees in the backyard

Richard Nelson and Mary Heers Inspecting Honeybee Hives
Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer

In the wild, a swarm of bees looking for a new home will often settle into a hollow in a tree. In some Cache Valley backyards, however. some bees will be quite content to move into a white 12×8 inch box sitting a few inches off the ground.

This is how my friend Richard got started keeping bees in his backyard with a single box full of worker honeybees and a queen.

Richard’s worker bees got busy building an interior wall of wax. This wall is an engineering marvel of tightly packed hexagonal cells that allow the bees to create the maximum amount of storage space with the minimum amount of wax.

While the interior walls were going up, other bees flew out of the bottom of the hive and into the flowering alfalfa fields nearby. The bees returned to the hive with bellies full of sugary nectar. The bees seemed to be thriving. Richard added another box.

Now, five years later, Richard has six hives and is harvesting gallons of honey. This year I invited myself over to watch the honey harvest.

We both suited up in bee suits. Richard lifted the top off one of the boxes. The bees were not pleased. The buzzing took on an angry edge as they flew right at us. I was very, very glad I was wearing the bee suit. I leaned in to get a better look and was surprised to see the bees had laid down a thin layer of wax capping the honey filled hexagonal cells. They had created a honey storage facility completely protected from moisture and air.

Bees are the only insect that produce wax. People that study bees tell us the honeybees secrete 8 tiny drops of wax out of their abdomen every 12 hours. The drops solidify into tiny flakes which the bees gather up. It takes 11,000 flakes to make 1 gram of wax. The bees keep the temperature inside the hive between 92-95 degrees Fahrenheit, so the wax stays flexible.

Later, when Richard got the harvested honey into his workshop, I watched him scrape off the layer of capping wax before putting the honey trays in the centrifuge. “Not to worry,” he said. He’d save the wax and make candles out of it later. Beeswax candles are ideal because they produce very little soot as well a few ions that help clean the air.

In 2013 the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris put 3 hives on their rooftop so they could make clean burning candles that could be lit inside the church.

Richard and I didn’t see the queen during the harvest, but Richard assured me she was there. Without a queen bee, the hive ceases to function. When Richard lost a queen awhile back, he quickly ordered one on the internet. The queen arrived in a small wood box (about the size of a matchbox) with a candy cork. It was up to the worker bees to open the box by chewing through the cork. Then, after the bees accepted the queen into their hive, they got to work feeding her an exclusive diet of Royal Jelly – something they produced out of their heads. In return the queen laid 1,500 eggs each day.

The queen becomes the mother of most if not all the bees in the hive. All the worker bees are female. Any drone lucky enough to mate with a virgin queen drops dead immediately afterwards. It’s a matriarchal society all the way.

I wonder if Brigham Young and the early pioneers knew this when they put the bee on the Utah flag in 1847.

This is Mary Heers and I’m Wild About Utah

Credits:

Images Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer, US NPS, Pixabay and Wikimedia
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright Anderson, Howe, and Wakeman.
Text: Mary Heers, https://cca.usu.edu/files/awards/art-and-mary-heers-citation.pdf
Additional Reading: Lyle Bingham, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah, Mary Heers’ Postings

August 24, 2026August 22, 2026

A Surprise visit with Cache Valley’s distant bird relatives

A Surprise visit with distant relatives of Cache Valley's birds: Peafowl Chicks, Courtesy Wikimedia, This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Creative_Commons and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en — Peafowl Chicks
Courtesy Wikimedia, This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

Awhile back, I was riding my bicycle along country roads in Cache Valley, when suddenly 6 unusual looking chicks ran across the road in single file right in front of me. I slammed on the brakes just in time as the chicks disappeared down the farmhouse driveway on the other side of the road.

I got off my bike and ventured partway down the driveway. Suddenly I found myself face to face with a fully grown peacock. This distant relative of Cache Valley’s native birds seemed quite at home in the shady backyard. As I glanced around, I realized it was his home. From where I was standing I could see at least ten more peacocks and peahens.

Peacock Courtesy Pixabay, Anrita1705, Contributor — Peacock
Courtesy Pixabay, Anrita1705, Contributor

Peahen on Tractor Cab
Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer

Peacock and Chickens
Courtesy US NPS, Bent’s Fort National Monument, New Mexico

Peahen
Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer

Peahen on Tractor Cab Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer — Peacock
Courtesy Pixabay, Anrita1705, Contributor

Peahen on Tractor Cab
Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer

Peacock and Chickens
Courtesy US NPS, Bent’s Fort National Monument, New Mexico

Peahen
Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer

Then I noticed the farmer sitting in his truck at the end of the driveway. He beckoned me over and gave me the whole story.

Many years ago, he had gone to Idaho and purchased a peacock and a peahen. The peahen ran off, so he went back and got another pair. This time it worked. The pair produced a nest full of eggs which the peahen diligently sat on for four weeks. She then tended the baby chicks for the week it took them to learn to fly up into the relative safety of the trees in the yard. The small family made itself at home, settling into a routine of spending their days on the ground and their nights in the trees.

Occasionally an owl or a racoon would take their toll, but these hardy birds proved they could not only survive but thrive. Knowing that these birds originally came from India , I was amazed that they could withstand the bitter cold of Cache Valley’s winters. Perhaps it helped that the farmer had a kindly wife, who would throw out some cracked corn, an occasional cup of cat food, and – on very special occasions- some hot dogs.

Peafowl are omnivores, and on this sunny day I could see them pecking away to their heart’s content in the adjacent grain fields. Luckily this band of birds avoided the fate of the six peacocks who used to free roam the zoo in Logan’s Willow Park. The zoo birds caught the bird flu virus in 2022 and all of them died.

I told my new friend, the farmer, that I was surprised how the females didn’t look the least bit like the males. The peahen is much smaller and is a rather drab brown. He explained that the peahen needs good camouflage because she lays her eggs on the ground and then has to sit there for four weeks with absolutely no help from the male.

The farmer invited me to take as many pictures as I wanted. So I pulled out my cell phone and stepped closer to the birds. That’s when I found out just how fast they can run. They stepped away and out of sight almost before I could blink. Peacocks have been clocked running as fast as 10 mph.

It wasn’t mating season, so the peacocks weren’t fanning out their tails and trying to impress the females. But I was already completely impressed to simply find out there are 200 feathers in the peacock tail. On top of that, the peacocks molt. Each year all 200 tail feathers fall out, and the peacock has to regrow them. No wonder the colors stay so bright!

This is Mary Heers and I’m Wild about all the birds who make themselves at home in Utah.

Credits:

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah, Mary Heers’ Postings

July 27, 2026July 27, 2026

Falconry Terms

Falcon on Forearm Courtesy and Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer — Falcon on Forearm
Courtesy and Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer

In 1962, Rachael Carson rocked the bird watching world with her book Silent Spring. She identified the commonly used pesticide DDT as the culprit responsible for declining populations of eagles, falcons and hawks. Rachael was able to prove that once DDT got into the food chain, it fatally weakened the eggshells of these birds. DDT was banned the following year.

Would the raptor populations be able to respond? The answer to this question was spearheaded by Hawk Watch International. They recruited volunteers to camp out near Mendon Peak which overlooks a major flyway for migrating birds in the fall.

Armed with pencils and paper, these volunteers checked off each raptor that flew by. It was a tough camp, because once the snow melts, any water on top had to be carried up there. Sometimes my family and others would hike up and give them oranges. Every year the news got better. The raptor populations were rebounding. In 1999 they were officially taken off the endangered species list.

At this time, for most people in Utah, getting a close look at a raptor required a trip to the Hogle Zoo to see the bird show. COVID shut down these shows. But luckily, a young volunteer at the zoo, Nick Morris, stepped up, got the licensing needed to own raptors, and created a traveling show called Long Wing Inc.

When I was able to meet Nick on his home turf, he told me that in Shakespeare’s time, most every man owned some kind of raptor. The kings owned eagles. The nobility owned falcons. It was no accident that talk of falcons worked its way into the spoken language.

For example, falconers kept ankle bands on the bird’s legs attached to short study strings. Before flying their birds, falconers held these strings in a tight fist with their thumbs pressing down hard. This is why we say we keep things “under our thumb.”

Falcons were always easier to handle while being transported with a hood slipped over their heads. This led to our saying today that when someone does not see something clearly, he is “hood winked.”

Morning chores were underway when I showed up at Nick’s house. He carried each bird out into his driveway and put a piece of quail on a sawhorse. The bird was happy to hop over and eat it. Nick then put a piece of quail down the driveway on top of his fence. This was a chance for the bird to spread his wings and fly to the treat. Everything was going to plan until one bird took off and settled on the roof of the house. There were a few tense minutes. Nick admitted to me he had once had to chase a runaway bird all the way to Evanston.
Shakespeare captures a moment like this when Juliet is on her balcony and Romeo has walked away.

Juliet says, “Oh for a falconer’s voice to lure this tassel-gentle back again.” Once we know that a “tassel” is Shakespeare’s word for a male falcon, we can see that Juliet is seeing Romeo as a noble and beautiful creature. Juliet sees herself as the falconer, hoping that Romeo will return and possibly be tamed by her.
Just as Romeo ran back to Juliet, Nick’s bird came down from the roof.

Nick explained how falcons were not pets in the traditional sense. Falconry is an ancient sport going back thousands of years. In Shakespeare’s time, it was a way of putting food on the dinner table.

This is Mary Heers and I’m Wild About Utah

Credits:
Photos: Courtesy and Copyright Mary Heers,
Featured Audio: Courtesy & © Mary Heers and Anderson, Howe and Wakeman.
Text: Mary Heers, https://cca.usu.edu/files/awards/art-and-mary-heers-citation.pdf
Additional Reading: Lyle Bingham, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah, Mary Heers’ Wild About Utah Postings

The Story of Silent Spring, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), August 13, 2015, https://www.nrdc.org/stories/story-silent-spring

The Wellsvilles Hawkwatch Site, Bridgerland Audubon Society, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/our-projects/the-wellsvilles-hawkwatch-site/

Utah’s Hogle Zoo, https://www.hoglezoo.org/

Tracy Aviary at Liberty Park, https://tracyaviary.org/liberty-park/visit/programs/daily-programs-activities/

Falconry, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Utah Department of Natural Resources, https://wildlife.utah.gov/hunting/main-hunting-page/falconry.html

Falconry terms in the English Language:

Bate: In falconry, “bate” refers to a hawk’s attempt to fly off its perch while still tethered. This has become “bated breath” in common English, meaning to be in a state of nervous anticipation or anxiety, according to Wingspan Bird of Prey Centre.

Fed up: A falcon that is well-fed has no incentive to hunt, leading to the term “fed up” meaning to be bored or uninterested.

Haggard: A “haggard” hawk is one caught from the wild as an adult, often difficult to train. In common usage, “haggard” describes someone looking exhausted or unwell.

Under his thumb: In falconry, this refers to the way a falconer holds the jesses (straps) of a hawk to control it. In general usage, it means being completely under someone’s control.

Hoodwinked: Originally, a “hood” was used to calm a hawk by covering its head. “Hoodwinked” means to be deceived or tricked, often subtly.

Rouse: A “rouse” in falconry is when a hawk shakes its feathers. This has evolved into the general meaning of shaking or awakening.

Pounce: A falcon’s “pounce” is its claws, used to seize prey. The word has entered common usage to describe a sudden, forceful movement.

Gorge: In falconry, a hawk “gorges” itself when it eats to capacity. This has become the general term for eating to excess.

Sources for Falconry terms in the English Language:
Evans, Andrew, How falconry changed language, BBC. February 24, 2022, https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20170111-how-irish-falconry-changed-language
The Language of Falconry, Wingspan Birds of Prey Trust, https://www.wingspan.co.nz/falconry_language.html
Amy, Falconry terms in common language, Powered by Birds, February 26, 2010, https://www.poweredbybirds.com/falconry-terms-in-common-language/
Assembled by Google AI https://ai.google.com

Utah Falconers Association, https://www.utahfalconers.com/