Vertebrates Archives - Page 61 of 107

December 22, 2015November 29, 2023

Christmas Bird Count (CBC) and Climate Change

Click for a larger view of Frank M. Chapman, organizer of the first christmas bird count, Courtesy Wikimedia, Image in the public domain — Frank M. Chapman
Courtesy Wikimedia
Image in the public domain

On December 19th, I will have joined several others for an exciting day of counting bird species and numbers in our lovely, snowy valley. Our numbers will be entered on a database that will be shared with the world. The Christmas Bird Count began on Christmas Day in the year 1900 when ornithologist Frank M. Chapman, an officer in the nascent Audubon Society, proposed a new holiday tradition—a “Christmas Bird Census” that would count birds during the holidays rather than slaughtering them, which had been the past ritual.

The data collected by observers over the past 115 years has allowed researchers to study the long-term health and status of bird populations across North America. When combined with other surveys such as the Breeding Bird Survey, it provides a picture of how the continent’s bird populations have changed in time and space. This long term perspective is vital for conservationists. It informs strategies to protect birds and their habitat, and helps identify environmental issues with implications for people as well.

Along with the fun it brings, this year’s count will have special significance for our local Audubon chapter which was awarded a National Audubon grant for “spreading the word” on our changing climate’s impact on birds. Through the grant writing and implementation I have a heightened awareness of how bird populations and their spacial distribution are changing at an accelerating rate.

Audubon’s 2014 Climate Change Report is a comprehensive, first-of-its kind study that predicts how climate change could affect the ranges of 588 North American birds. Of the bird species studied, more than half are likely to be in trouble. The models indicate that 314 species will lose more than 50 percent of their current climatic range by 2080.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has included Audubon’s climate change work from CBC data as one of 26 indicators of climate change in their 2012 report.

In 2007, CBC data were instrumental in the development of Audubon’s Common Birds in Decline Report, which revealed that some of America’s most beloved and familiar birds have taken a nosedive over the past forty years.

142 species of concern are found in Utah including our state bird, the California gull and our the bald eagle, our national bird. Averaging the most recent 10 years, our valley has seen 16 species increase and 11 species decline. Of course we would need a take a much broader sweep to know the true story of these species, but our data may play a significant part in the overall analysis.
And please keep those bird feeders full as we enter the coldest month of the year!

This is Jack Greene for Wild About Utah.

Credits:
Image: Courtesy Wikimedia and in the public domain
Text: Jack Greene, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Additional Reading:

December 9, 2015March 1, 2018

Western Banded Gecko

They might catch your eye as they dart under sagebrush. Or maybe startle you with their pushups on a boulder. Odds are, you won’t leave Arches or Canyonlands national parks without seeing a Western Banded Gecko.

These lizards can grow to six inches in length, though that’s on the large side, and half of that length might be their tail. Pale-pink and brown-banded translucent skin distinguishes Western Banded Geckos from all other lizards that live in the same desert surroundings, and their heads and bodies are speckled with light brown. The brown bands are vibrant in young Western Banded Geckos, and then change into blotches, or spots, with age.

The small scales that cover their body are soft to touch, and their slender toes leave no room for pads. Movable eyelids and vertical pupils also set them apart.

The Western Banded Gecko typically are spotted in rocky or sandy desert areas in the American Southwest. They are fond of open, dry deserts, desert grasslands, and catching the sun in the canyons. You can spot them, or one of the eight subspecies, in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, as well as in Arches and Canyonlands.

Like other geckos, these lizards generally avoid the day heat and prefer the cool night air. They seek shelter during the day near or under rocks, burrows, and spaces beneath vegetative debris, and even trash piles if necessary. They frequent rodent burrows as they hunt insects, spiders, small arthropods, and baby scorpions.

The Western Banded Gecko stalks its prey, capturing and crushing it with its jaws in a final, fatal lunge. The small gecko is one of the few reptiles credited with controlling the scorpion population, by eating their young. The Western Banded Gecko can also mimic a scorpion, by turning its tail upwards, and waving it to repel predators.

In addition to this deception, Western Banded Geckos use other methods to divert predators. Be forewarned: if you plan on catching a Western Banded Gecko, be prepared to hear a squeak or chirp in disagreement. You may even see them detach their tail. Their tail has particular fracture planes, allowing the lizard to easily detach and escape, similar to other lizards. Blood vessels surrounding the tail rapidly close, so they can prevent blood loss. Regrowth of their tails happens quickly, as it is mostly made up of cartilage.

Though the tail serves as an easy escape route, it means a lot to a Western Banded Gecko: that’s where it stores its food and water. Their tail allows these animals to survive during lean times, up to nine months. As you can imagine, losing a tail puts their life in danger, so look but don’t touch.

For Wild About Utah and National Parks Traveler, I’m Kurt Repanshek.

Credits:
Image: Courtesy and Copyright Kurt Repanshek, www.nationalparkstraveler.com
Text: Kurt Repanshek, NationalParksTraveler.com.

Additional Reading:

November 30, 2015January 24, 2021

A Safari through Utah’s Ice Age

Click to view larger image of a ground sloth of the Pleistocene, Photo Courtesy Paramylodon harlani, Texas Memorial Museum, University of Texas at Austin. Via Wikimedia,as licensed through Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported — Wave-cut platforms from
Lake Bonneville preserved on
Antelope Island, Great Salt Lake, Utah.
Photo Courtesy Wikimedia, Mark A. Wilson (Department of Geology, The College of Wooster), Photographer

Ground sloth of the Pleistocene
*Paramylodon harlani*
Texas Memorial Museum
University of Texas at Austin.
Photo Courtesy Wikimedia
Licensed CCA Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Lake Bonneville compared to the
State of Utah.
Photo Courtesy https://wildlife.utah.gov/gsl/history/

Hi, I’m Ru Mahoney with Stokes Nature Center in Logan Canyon. As winter approaches I find myself anticipating the first really good snow, when our valley floors and mountain passes will be transformed overnight, relinquishing autumn’s riot of color for a glacial monochrome. As little as 12,000 years ago winter white was Utah’s perennial favorite, donned at the launch of the Pleistocene Epoch, a roughly 2 million year long period (give or take 10,000 years) marked by widely recurring glaciations.

The west has a reputation for being vast, but Ice Age Utah was even bigger. The mountains where higher and sharper. And the Great Salt Lake was submerged beneath the glacial waters of Lake Bonneville. At its largest, this massive body of water covered 20,000 square miles and was more than 980 feet deep. To put that into perspective, that measures about 9.5 million football fields wide by 4.5 Salt Lake Temples deep. And the Ice Age wildlife? Well it was much more akin to an African safari than anything you’re likely to find on your favorite shoreline trail these days.

The megafauna of Pleistocene Utah included a menagerie of beasts that are the stuff of legend. Familiar species like bison and big-horn sheep grazed among herds of mammoths and mastodons. Camels and horses – destined for extinction in North America – were the prehistoric prey of dire wolves and saber-toothed cats. Giant ground sloths the size of modern day elephants stood on two powerful hind legs to browse on shoreline foliage. And herds of muskoxen kept a wary eye on Arctodus, the Short-faced bear, a formidable predator more than 50% larger than any bear species living today.

The last 30,000 years of Utah’s Ice Age were characterized by increasingly volatile shifts in climate. The changing norms in temperature and abundance of liquid water created cyclical periods of transitioning habitat. Forests and forest dwellers gave way to deserts and their specialist species, before shifting back to forests again, all in mere millennia. While nomadic and highly adaptable species like muskoxen eventually moved north to more stable climates, the less adaptable fauna of the Ice Age were increasingly relegated to sharing shoreline habitat diminished by the swollen banks of Lake Bonneville.

As fluctuating glaciers pushed southward and then retreated, canyons like Big and Little Cottonwood were gouged into existence. Spring and summer glacier melt carried an abundance of freshwater into the lake, sometimes sweeping along with it the remains of prehistoric animals that had not lasted through the winter, laying them to rest in shoreline deltas where their fossilized remains are now uncovered and studied in alluvial sediment. For many of Utah’s Ice Age animals, the end of the Pleistocene brought extinction.

Today the ancient shoreline of Lake Bonneville is one of the most distinguishable geological features along the Wasatch front. This “bench”, as it’s now commonly known, is easily identifiable in cities all along the Wasatch and frequently boasts fine homes and even finer views. Which might go to show that lakeside property retains its value whether the lake is still there or not. So as you enjoy a winter hike or cross country ski along a shoreline trail this season, think about Utah’s last Ice Age and how our rich fossil record, with some of earth’s largest land mammals, paints a picture of an even wilder west.

For Wild About Utah and Stokes Nature Center, I’m Ru Mahoney.

A Safari through Utah’s Ice Age-Credits:
Image1: Courtesy Wikimedia, Mark A. Wilson (Department of Geology, The College of Wooster), Photographer
Image2: Courtesy Wikimedia,as licensed through Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
Image3: Courtesy https://wildlife.utah.gov/gsl/history/
Text: Ru Mahoney, Stokes Nature Center in Logan Canyon.

A Safari through Utah’s Ice Age-Additional Reading:
https://geology.utah.gov/popular/general-geology/ice-age/ice-age-animals-of-utah/

https://serc.carleton.edu/vignettes/collection/37942.html

https://hugefloods.com/Bonneville.html

https://geology.utah.gov/surveynotes/archives/snt42-3.pdf

https://geology.utah.gov/surveynotes/articles/pdf/pleistocene_fossils_42-3.pdf

November 23, 2015April 30, 2016

Three-Leaf Sumac (Rhus trilobata)

Many think of the desert as a hot, dry, barren, and unforgiving place. However, Utah’s deserts are chock full of interesting and diverse plants and animals! One such plant, which grows throughout much of Utah, is rhus trilobata or three-leaf sumac.

Three-leaf sumac is a widespread deciduous shrub in the Rhus genus, meaning “with three leaflets,” or “trifoliate leaves.” Others in this genus include Rhus aromoatica and the infamous western poison oak. The leaves of this shrubby-type plant are toothed, feel stiff and they give off quite a strong scent when crushed. The strong smell of crushed three-leaf sumac leaves has earned it the nickname “skunkbush” as well as “ill-scented sumac.”

Three-leaf sumac is a low spreading, many-branched deciduous shrub, usually no more than 3 feet high but spreading as much as 8 feet wide. The small, trifoliate leaves and the branches are fuzzy. Given its many branches, three-leaf sumac provides both nesting material and structure for native bees. Flowers are yellowish and found in clustered spikes. They are followed by bright crimson to reddish, sticky berries. The fall foliage adds an extra pop of color to the landscape.

Historically, three-leaf sumac has been used for medicinal and other purposes. The bark can be chewed or brewed into a drink for cold symptoms. Flexible branches were traditionally used for twisting into basketry and rugs. In fact, three-leaf sumac was a close contender to willow in desirability for basket-making. This common use of the plant earned it another nickname of “basketbush.”

My favorite part of three-leaf sumac, however, are the slightly hairy and sticky berries. Although historically eaten for gastrointestinal pain and toothache, the berries have a delicious sour flavor and can be eaten plain or used in oatmeal, ice cream, steeped in tea, or soaked in cold water to make a beverage similar to lemonade. These berries are high in vitamin C and have earned three-leaf sumac the additional nicknames of “sourberry” “lemonade bush” and “lemonade berry.” Other nicknames for this multi-purpose plant include squawbush, desert sumac, or scented sumac.

Regardless of which nickname you choose for three-leaf sumac, give the berries a try and see for yourself what you think! Be sure, however, that you properly identify the plant to avoid potential illness that can be caused by misidentification! One great resource that can help is the field guide “Rocky Mountain States: Wild Berries & Fruits.”

For Utah State University Extension Sustainability, this is Roslynn Brain.

Credits:
Images: Courtesy Hansen’s Northwest Native Plant Database, nwplants.com, https://www.nwplants.com/business/catalog/rhu_tri.html,
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Text: Roslynn Brain, Utah State University Extension Sustainability

Additional Reading:

https://www.plantsofthesouthwest.com/Three-Leaf-Sumacbri-Rhus-trilobata/productinfo/S2770/