Category: Vertebrates

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The New Dove in the Neighborhood

Eurasian Collared Dove
Note the black collar
and the broad square tail
Courtesy Stephen Peterson

Native Mourning Dove
Courtesy USFWS

During the winter after most doves have migrated, you may notice a dove foraging along the roadside or perched in a tree. A new species has arrived in our neighborhood, the Eurasian collared dove or Streptopelia decaocto, which has a distinctive black neck ring and a broad tail.

Originally found near the Bay of Bengal in Asia, this dove began its range expansion in the 1600’s. By 1900, it had made its way to Turkey, and by 2000 could be found as far north as the Arctic Circle in Scandinavia. Expansion into North America occurred in the early seventies when the collared dove appeared in the Bahamas. Since 1982, when first discovered in Florida, it has been gradually making its way north and west. Nineteen ninety-seven marked the first official report of Eurasian collared doves in Orem, Utah. Now they have spread throughout the state.

Eurasian collared doves join rock pigeons, the English sparrow, and the European starling as non-native birds that have expanded across the country. Experts attribute the success of Eurasian collared doves to the wide availability of seed offered by backyard bird feeders, as well as their ability to aggressively defend feeding areas. Some fear that they will cause territory or breeding problems for our native mourning dove, but so far there is no evidence to support this concern.

In an effort to reduce the number of Eurasian collared doves, the Utah DWR allows year-round harvesting. But be careful: don’t confuse this dove with the smaller mourning dove, which has a narrow, pointed tail and no ring on its neck. Eurasian collared doves have a distinct neck band and a broad, squared tail. Their calls also differ.

The mourning dove has the familiar melodic call:
[coo-ah cooo cooo coo]
[Kevin Colver, Songbirds of the Rocky Mountains
12 Mourning Dove]

Now listen to the Eurasian collared dove:
[“coo-coooo-coo”, “coo-coooo-coo”, “coo-coooo-coo”, “krreair”]
[Eurasian collared dove – From Kevin Colver’s private library
Two calls combined for this piece.]

The verdict is still out on the impact that the Eurasian collared dove will have on native species. In the mean time, let’s watch to see how this new dove adapts to the neighborhood and fits into the ecosystem.

Thank-you to Lyle Bingham of Bridgerland Audubon for writing this essay and to Kevin Colver for providing the recorded songs.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Credits:

Photos: Courtesy US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) and Stephen Peterson, Bridgerland Audubon
Recordings: Kevin Colver, https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections
Voice: Linda Kervin, Bridgerland Audubon
Text: Lyle Bingham, Bridgerland Audubon

Additional Reading:
—
Florida’s Introduced Birds: Eurasian collared-Dove (Streptopelia decaocto), Stephen A. Johnson and Gay Donaldson-Fortier, University of Florida IFAS Extension, WEC 256,https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/UW/UW30100.pdf —
Johnson, S.A. and *G. Donaldson-Fortier. 2009. Florida’s introduced birds: The Eurasian CollaredDove (Streptopelia decaocto). Florida Cooperative Extension Service Publication WEC 256 https://journals.flvc.org/edis/article/download/117916/115917

Tricky Bird IDs: Eurasian Collared-Dove and African Collared-Dove, Project FeederWatch, A Joint Project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Bird Studies Canada, https://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw/AboutBirdsandFeeding/EucdovRitdovID.htm

Romagosa, Christina Margarita. 2002. Eurasian Collared-Dove (Streptopelia decaocto), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: https://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/630/articles/introduction

2009-2010 Upland Game Guidebook, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, https://wildlife.utah.gov/guidebooks/2009-10_upland_game/2009-10_upland_game.pdf

Complete Birds of North America, ed. Jonathan Alderfer, National Geographic, 2006

Know Your Doves, Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, State of Texas, https://tpwd.texas.gov/education/hunter-education/know-your-doves

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Tales of the Packrat The Legacy of Early Grazing on Utah’s Rangelands

Tales of the Packrat: Pack Rat Midden, Photo Courtesy and Copyright 2009 Ken Cole - All Rights Reserved
Pack Rat Midden
Copyright © 2009 Ken Cole

Reaching for a Pack Rat Midden, Click to Zoom, Photo Courtesy and Copyright 2009 Ken Cole - All Rights Reserved Reaching for a Pack Rat Midden
Copyright © 2009 Ken Cole

One of the best storytellers in Utah’s national parks is not a ranger, but the lowly packrat.Tales of the Packrat
Their stories of past plant communities are written in their middens. The midden is a heap of leaves, twigs, seeds and fruits the packrat discards outside its nest. Protected in a desert cave or rock crevice and preserved by a rat’s own urine, this heap is a detailed and accurate time capsule of the past local flora.

Ken Cole with the US Geological Survey is a fluent translator of the packrat’s stories. Ken and colleagues sampled old packrat nests around Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Capitol Reef National Park. By carbon-14 dating, the nest ages are known to span the last 10,000 years. As controls, they also collected nests from mesa tops inaccessible to livestock. Ken and colleagues then carefully translated these packrats’ stories by identifying and counting the plant fragments in these fossil nests.

At both Capitol Reef and Glen Canyon, old packrat nests revealed pre-settlement plant communities that were rich in diverse grasses, wildflowers and shrubs. Then these floras changed. Beginning 150 years ago, vast herds of sheep and cattle tromped and chewed their way across the unfenced rangelands of Utah in numbers unimaginable today. We know that palatable plant species and those susceptible to trampling suffered declines, because they are absent from middens from that time period. Unpalatable shrubs multiplied. Despite curtailed grazing in subsequent decades at Capitol Reef and Glen Canyon, packrats show us that the flora still has not recovered. Like Aesop’s fables, this cautionary lesson of the packrat’s ecological tale remains clear and relevant today. We should all listen.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.
Tales of the Packrat
Credits:
Photos: Courtesy and Copyright Ken Cole
Text: Julio Betancourt USGS and Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon
Additional Reading:

Betancourt, Julio L., Thomas R. Van Devender, and Paul S. Martin, eds. Packrat Middens: The Last 40,000 Years of Biotic Change, University of Arizona Press, 1990 https://www.uapress.arizona.edu/books/BID40.htm

Pack Rat Middens, Colorado Plateau in Land Use History of North America, Ken Cole, USGS/Northern Arizona University, https://cpluhna.nau.edu/Tools/packrat_middens.htm

Introduction [to Carbon 14 Dating], Tom Higham, Radiocarbon Laboratory, University of Waikato, New Zealand https://www.c14dating.com/int.html [Sep 24, 2009]

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Bugging Marbled Godwits

Marbled Godwit on the shore
Photo by Lee Karney
Courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

In the name of curiosity and hunger, man has tracked the migrations of animals for centuries. The first record of the use of leg bands to track birds is from 1595 when one of Henry IV’s Peregrine Falcons was lost in France. It showed up 24 hours later in Malta, about 1400 miles away. John James Audubon tied silver cords to a brood of phoebes and identified two nestlings that returned the next year. In 1899, Hans Mortensen added identification numbers and his return address to the plain leg bands and modern bird banding was born.

In the United States, anyone who finds a bird band is encouraged to report it to the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland. Banding provides us with limited information, however. There is no data about the bird’s life between the time of banding and its recapture or death.

But recent miniaturization of satellite transmitters used to track larger animals is now proving valuable in bird research. In 2006, Bridget Olsen of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and Adrian Farmer of the US Geological Survey started placing tiny satellite transmitters on the backs of Marbled Godwits, a hefty sandpiper that rests at the refuge during its migration. The Marbled Godwit is in decline throughout its range. This large shorebird was chosen by scientists from Mexico, the United States and Canada as the focus for an international shorebird conservation effort.
The solar-powered transmitters periodically record the bird’s GPS location. The transmission is picked up via satellite and returned to the researchers. Comparing two transmissions indicates travel time and speed.

Olsen and Farmer work with wildlife officers across North America to track the Marbled Godwits from their wintering grounds in Baja California, through their migration to nesting grounds in the Great Plains, Alaska and Canada.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Credits:
Theme: Courtesy & Copyright Don Anderson as performed by Leaping Lulu
Photo: Courtesy US Fish & Wildlife Service, National Digital Library
        [Formerly at https://www.fws.gov/digitalmedia/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/natdiglib&CISOPTR=4348&CISOBOX=1&REC=1]
Text: Lyle Bingham, Linda Kervin, Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon

Additional Reading:

Go Godwits Resources: https://www.fort.usgs.gov/Resources/GoGodwits/

Frequently Asked Questions: Tracking Marbled Godwits by Satellite: https://www.fort.usgs.gov/Resources/GoGodwits/faq.asp#Q1
Conservation Plan for the Marbled Godwit:
https://www.usgs.gov/publications/conservation-plan-marbled-godwit-version-11 [Added Jan 27, 2026]

Ruthrauff, D. R., Tibbitts, T. L., Gill, R. E., Jr and Douglas, D. C., 2019, Tracking data for Marbled Godwit (Limosa fedoa): U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9NORY48 [Added Jan 27, 2026]
Tracking Data for Marbled Godwits (Limosa fedoa), Alaska Science Center, September 12, 2019, https://www.usgs.gov/data/tracking-data-marbled-godwits-limosa-fedoa [Added Jan 27, 2026]

Marbled Godwit, Limosa fedoa, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Migratory Bird Research, Formerly at https://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i2490id.html

Effects of Management Practices on Grassland Birds: Marbled Godwit, USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, https://www.usgs.gov/publications/effects-management-practices-grassland-birds-marbled-godwit [Updated Jan 27, 2026]

Marbled Godwit, Fieldguide, Utah Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife Resources, https://fieldguide.wildlife.utah.gov/?species=limosa%20fedoa

Satellites Used to Track Bird Movement and Preserve Species, U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, USGS Newsroom, June 12, 2006, formerly at https://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1521

Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Brigham City, UT – Research Page, Formerly at: https://www.fws.gov/bearriver/research.html

Skagen, S. K., P. B. Sharpe, R. G. Waltermire, and M. B. Dillon. 1999. Biogeographical profiles ofshorebird migration in
midcontinental North America. Biological Science Report USGS/BRD/BSR–2000-0003. U.S. Government Printing
Office, Denver, Colo. 167 pp. https://pubs.usgs.gov/bsr/2000/0003/report.pdf [Added Jan 27, 2026]

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Hummingbirds in Utah

Hummingbird feeding from Corrine Thul’s Hand
Courtesy & Copyright © 2009 Corrine Thul

Holly: Hi, I’m Holly Strand from Stokes Nature Center in beautiful Logan Canyon.

Depending on where you are in Utah, fall is just around the corner. Or it may already be here. That means it’s time for many of our Utah birds to migrate south to warmer temperatures and more abundant food sources. Here in Logan Canyon, we’re getting ready to bid farewell to our charismatic little friends, the hummingbirds.

Hummingbirds are a New World phenomenon, living only in the western hemisphere. They are primarily tropical. Of the 330 species we know about, 95% live south of the US-Mexico border. Ecuador has 163 species–more than any other country. Colombia is next with 136 including a new species discovered just 5 years ago. Hummingbirds are known by a number of different names in Spanish including the generic term colibrí, picaflores meaning flower pickers ; and the more poetic term, joyas voladores or “flying jewels.”

In spite of its great size, only 16 different hummingbirds regularly found on the North American continent. Interestingly, –except for the Ruby-throated Hummingbird—all of these species breed west of the Mississippi River.

In Utah—roughly comparable to the size of Ecuador—5 species are regular visitors. Broad-tailed hummingbird and the black-chinned hummingbird are the most common and most widespread. They both overwinter in Mexico.

The calliope hummingbird is also seen in Utah. It is the smallest breeding bird in North America weighing about as much as a penny! The calliope is also the smallest long distant migrant bird in the world traveling up to 5600 miles in a single year. The rufous hummingbird is another long distance migrant seen in Utah, traveling from as far north as Alaska all the way down to central Mexico .

There is some controversy over whether or not you should continue to feed hummingbirds in fall. Some say you should quit feeding by late August or the hummingbirds won’t migrate. This is not true– in fact many hummingbirds begin migrating when their natural food sources are still intact. According to Audubon Society website, in the fall, you should keep your feeders up for two weeks after you see the last bird using it. The tiny birds need to double their body mass before migration, and a bit of extra nectar can only help.

Thanks to the Rocky Mountain Power Foundation for supporting the research and development of this Wild About Utah topic.
And thanks to Corrine Thul for supporting both hummingbird conservation and educational programming in Logan Canyon.

For Wild About Utah and Stokes Nature Center, I’m Holly Strand.

Credits:

Theme: Courtesy & Copyright Don Anderson Leaping Lulu
Image: Courtesy and Copyright 2009 Corrine Thul
Text & Voice: Holly Strand, Stokes Nature Center

Sources & Additional Reading:

Hummingbirds/Nectar Feeders, National Audubon Society, https://audubon.org/bird/at_home/bird_feeding/hum_feeders.html (accessed September 2, 2009)

Johnsgard, Paul A. 1997.  The Hummingbirds of North America.  Washington DC:  Smithsonian Institution Press. https://www.amazon.com/Hummingbirds-North-America-Paul-Johnsgard/dp/1560987081

Klesius, Michael.  2007.  Flight of Fancy.  National Geographic. Vol. 211.  pp. 114-129.

https://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/01/hummingbirds/klesius-text.html

Utah woman has a way with hummingbirds, Daily Herald, July 19, 2009, https://www.heraldextra.com/news/state-and-regional/article_c8e879cd-c5bc-5a9a-810a-63cce86cd09c.html

Nature News, Evolution News and Views, David Klinghoffer, The Genius of Birds: Watch a Hummingbird’s Tongue in Action – See more at: https://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/06/the_genius_of_b073491.html

Coro Arizmendi Arriaga, Maria del, Hummingbirds of
Mexico and North America, In Spanish and English, CONABIO, 2014, https://www.biodiversidad.gob.mx/Difusion/pdf/colibries_mexico_y_norteamerica.pdf

Coro Arizmendi Arriaga, Maria del, Hummingbirds of
Mexico and North America, In Spanish and English, CONABIO, 2014, https://www.biodiversidad.gob.mx/Difusion/pdf/colibries_mexico_y_norteamerica.pdf

Samuels, Ashe, 10 Hummingbird Feeding Mistakes Everyone Makes (and How to Avoid Them), Wild Bird Scoop, June 19, 2025, https://www.wildbirdscoop.com/hummingbird-feeding-mistakes.html