Wild About Utah

December 10, 2009October 29, 2024

New Celebrants for Old Christmas Trees

Christmas Tree on the curb, Courtesy University of Illinois Extension — Christmas Tree on the curb
Courtesy University of Illinois Extension

As a word, “repurposing” grates a little on my ear, but the concept is laudable. At my home, we reuse items in new ways for birdfeeding. Our main bird feeder hangs from the trunk of a venerable old apple tree in our backyard. In winter, the apple offers fruits and perches aplenty, but no cover for hungry juncos, chickadees and finches.

What they want are the thick boughs of a conifer. After every Christmas, there is just such a tree, all decorated, standing in our living room. Rather than hurling that tree on the municipal heap straightaway — a rather abrupt fall from grace, if you ask me — we prop it up beneath our feeder, giving it new purpose as a shelter for feeding birds. They duck in and out of its needled boughs all day long. Some even roost there at night. Beneath it, ground feeding birds can safely clean up the seeds that rain down from the feeder above. A ring of upturned tomato cages beneath the feeder — that otherwise lie idle in our vegetable garden — are given a winter purpose of impeding any stray cats interested in the birds beneath our seed feeder. For no cost and scant effort, we provide our feeder birds with shelter from winter storms and protection from feline predators.

Don’t forget water for the birds in winter. Open water can be a scarce commodity. In areas with freezing temperatures, there are heating elements to put in an existing birdbath or baths with a heating element encased in the base. In our yard, the birdbath is as popular as the seed feeders.

Birds appreciate the simple gifts: shelter from a discarded Christmas tree, a feeder full of seed and water to drink.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Credits:
Bird Sounds: Courtesy Kevin Colver
Text: Jim Cane and Linda Kervin, Bridgerland Audubon SocietyBridgerland Audubon Society, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/
Voice: Linda Kervin, Bridgerland Audubon SocietyBridgerland Audubon Society, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading:

Wild About Utah pieces by Linda Kervin and Jim Cane

Bird Habitat Necessities, Audubon.org, https://www.audubon.org/bird/at_home/HealthyYard_BirdHabitat.html

Don’t toss your tree: Help local wildlife, Wildlife Blog, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, https://wildlife.utah.gov/news/wildlife-blog/827-dont-toss-your-christmas-tree.html

November 26, 2009April 12, 2018

Rocky the Flying Squirrel

Northern Flying Squirrel to view larger image, Photo Courtesy Phil Myers (photographer, copyright holder), Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan — Northern Flying Squirrel
Photo Courtesy
Phil Myers (photographer, copyright holder)
Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
3.0 Unported License.

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

There’s a large paper wasp nest on display on a bookcase at the Nature Center. Last week, Anna and I noticed some strange noises emanating from it. It even seemed to move a little on the shelf. We carefully –and a bit nervously–approached to investigate. I picked up the nest and it began to shake vigourously. Then a live missile shot out of the opening. It was a chubby little squirrel with huge dark eyes. He jumped from the bookcase and went scurrying across the floor with Anna and I in hot pursuit. Then he scampered up to the top of a door frame. We tried to catch him with a cardboard box, but he spread his little legs out wide and went sailing over our heads, landing smoothly on floor across the room. And then he ran under the couch. We stood there in amazement. He wasn’t your normal squirrel—he was a flying squirrel!

The northern flying squirrel is one of two flying squirrels found in United States, the other being the southern flying squirrel . Northern flying squirrels occur in many of Utah’s mountainous areas, primarily in mature coniferous forests and riparian zones.

According to Mike Wolfe at the Utah State University’s College of Natural Resources, they aren’t exactly rare in Logan Canyon. In fact, they are active here throughout the year, but they’re completely nocturnal. So many people never see them and are surprised to find that we have them.

Flying squirrels don’t really fly. They glide. They have a loose fold of skin known as a patagium which runs along each side of the body from the ankle of the hind leg to the wrist of the foreleg. When they stretch this membrane and launch they instantly become a furry paraglider, capable of covering great distances using a small fraction of the energy it would take to run.

Rocky, as we called the nature visitor, proved very difficult to catch. In the end, we used a live trap baited with apples and sunflower seeds. On Thanksgiving morning, my husband and I found him sitting in it, wishing he were somewhere else. We took him up the canyon and released him. He scampered up a tree and seemed to regard us thoughtfully. On the way back to the car, I looked back once more and was lucky enough to see one last beautiful 20 ft glide from tree to tree.

Thanks to the USU College of Natural Resources for supporting research and development of this Wild About Utah topic.

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

Images: Courtesy Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and Phil Myers (photographer, copyright holder), Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan, licensed under CCA-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Text: Holly Strand, Stokes Nature Center

Sources & Additional Reading:

Flyingsquirrels.com [Accessed December 4, 2009]

Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. Utah Conservation Data Center. Species database. NORTHERN FLYING SQUIRREL. https://dwrcdc.nr.utah.gov/rsgis2/Search/Display.asp?FlNm=glausabr [Accessed December 04, 2009]

Malamuth, E. and M. Mulheisen. 1999. “Glaucomys sabrinus” (On-line), Animal Diversity Web. https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Glaucomys_sabrinus/pictures/collections/contributors/phil_myers/classic/sabrinus1/ [Accessed December 04, 2009]

November 19, 2009March 26, 2022

Wild Turkeys – Recently Moved to Utah

The pilgrims had turkeys for the first Thanksgiving*, but the likelihood that turkeys roamed Utah at that time is small. Archaeologists have found turkey bones in pueblos in the south-eastern corner of the state. But, it is not known if they were domesticated or wild birds. However, like the ring-necked pheasant, and chukar partridge, more than 20,000 wild turkeys now roam Utah thanks to hunters and wildlife professionals.

Turkeys are the largest upland game bird in Utah. Toms stand 4 feet high with tails fanned. Hens stand 3 feet tall. First year birds are called Jakes and Jennies.

Three of the five sub-species of wild turkey were introduced to Utah. Eastern turkeys lived on Antelope Island from 1925 through the 1950s. The Merriam’s, from the ponderosa pine habitat of Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado were introduced in 1952. And Rio Grandes, native to cottonwood river bottoms of Texas, were introduced in 1984.

Merriam’s turkeys are blacker than the eastern turkey, with reflections of blue, bronze and purple. Tail coverts, the feathers of the lower back that cover the tail feathers, are white on a Merriam’s turkey; and buff or tan on a Rio Grande.
For protection, turkeys roost in trees, but descend to feed under or near trees during the day. Except when nesting, they prefer protection in numbers and rarely wander alone.

In winter they roost in flocks, but disperse as far as 10 miles to nest. Hens lay 10-11 eggs near brushy cover and incubate them for 28 days. They eat pine nuts, acorns, seeds, insects and green vegetation.

The main predators are hawks, golden eagles, foxes, coyotes, dogs, cats, skunks, raccoons, ravens, and magpies. Fortunately, the numbers hatched usually overcome predation losses.

Thanks this holiday goes to the National Wild Turkey Foundation and Utah DWR for our Wild Turkeys.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Wild Turkeys Near Mack Park in Smithfield, UT, 22 Feb 2009
Copyright © 2009 Lyle Bingham

Credits:

Photos:
Wild Turkey Courtesy US FWS, Robert H. Burton, Photographer
Wild Turkeys near Mack Park, Smithfield, UT Copyright © 2009 Lyle Bingham
Voice: Linda Kervin, Bridgerland Audubon
Text: Lyle Bingham, Bridgerland Audubon

Additional Reading:

Note: Turkeys were not featured at the first thanksgiving in 1621 as they are in present meals. References to the meal included venison and wild fowl, but the likelihood that turkey was featured is questioned. Although associated with the first thanksgiving by tradition, they are believed to have become commonly associated with the thanksgiving meal around 1800. The NWTF notes this in their History of the Wild Turkey in North America: https://www.nwtf.org/resource-library/detail/history-turkey-north-america

The Pilgrim Hall at Plymouth Plantation notes two sources of information about the thanksgiving celebration. The William Bradford writings mention “Turkies” https://www.pilgrimhall.org/great_american_turkey.htm

Why a Turkey Is Called a Turkey, Robert Krulwich, Nov, 27, 2008, NPR, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97541602

National Wild Turkey Foundation, https://www.nwtf.org/

Utah Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Foundation, https://www.utnwtf.org/

Wild Turkey Preditors, Posted by Admin, September 20, 2008, https://waterandwoods.net/2008/09/wild-turkey-predators/

Wild Turkeys, Project Wild, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Utah Department of Natural Resources, State of Utah, https://wildlife.utah.gov/projectwild/newsletters/00fall-nc.pdf

Wild Turkey, The National Geographic Society, https://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/wild-turkey.html

Wild Turkey,Meleagris gallopavo, All About Birds, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University, https://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Wild_Turkey.html

Eaton, Stephen W. 1992. Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: formerly: https://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/022/articles/introduction

Wild Turkey,Meleagris gallopavo, Birds of the World, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University, https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/wiltur/cur/introduction

Merriams:

https://dwrcdc.nr.utah.gov/rsgis2/search/Display.asp?FlNm=melegame

Rio Grande:

https://dwrcdc.nr.utah.gov/rsgis2/Search/Display.asp?FlNm=melegain

Turkey CSI: USU Lab’s DNA Analysis Nabs Poacher, Mary-Ann Muffoletto, Utah State Today, November, 2008, https://www.usu.edu/ust/index.cfm?article=21644

November 12, 2009May 22, 2016

Utah Lobster Étouffée

Click to view larger image Northern Crayfish Orconectes virilis. Photo Copyright 2009 Ellen Wakely — Northern Crayfish Orconectes virilis
© 2009 Ellen Wakely

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

Remember this song?:

You get a line and I’ll get a pole honey
You get a line and I’ll get a pole, babe
You get a line and I’ll get a pole
And we’ll go down to the crawdad hole
Honey, baby mine

Did you know you that the “Crawdad Song” is relevant for Utahns? Not long ago, I encountered a rocky stream just teeming with crayfish.

Crawfish, crawdaddies, freshwater lobsters and mudbugs are all different names for the same little creature. Like a lobster, the crayfish has a joined head and midsection, and a segmented body. Crayfish come in assorted colors: sandy yellow, green, white, pink or dark brown. And they are usually about (3 inches) long.

Crayfish conceal themselves under rocks or logs. They are most active at night, when they feed on snails, algae, insect larvae, worms, and other delicacies.

There are about 330 different species that occur in North America. They are especially concentrated in the southern Mississippi Basin. Utah has only one native—the pilose crayfish. Its range is in northern Utah’s Bear River, Weber River and Ogden River drainages and in the Raft River Mountains drainages.

Utah also has two known invasive crayfish, The northern crayfish is a very successful and aggressive species. It was introduced and stocked in the 60’s and 70’s and is increasingly widespread. These crayfish are particularly abundant in Flaming Gorge and Glen Canyon reservoirs and in the Virgin and Duchesne drainages. The Louisiana crayfish has also found its way to Utah. This is the culinary crayfish that you ‘ve probably encountered in jambalaya and crawfish étouffée.

Nonnative crayfish infestations degrade freshwater habitats if the new crayfish outcompetes natives. Invasives also carry disease. Too many crayfish can destabilize stream banks by digging and burrowing.

In controlled quantities and locations crayfish provide wonderful food for fish, birds and people too. You can catch crayfish with
chunks of meat or fish. They are attracted to the odor.

Anyone with a valid Utah fishing or combination license may take crayfish for personal use during the open fishing season set for the given body of water. Just make sure you don’t transport any live crayfish away from the body of water where taken.

Thanks to The ToneWay Project at Toneway.com for their rendition of the crawdad song.
And to Dr. Scott Miller of the College of Natural Resources Bug Lab at Utah State University.

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

Credits:

Sources & Additional Reading:

Johnson, J. E. 1986. Inventory of Utah Crayfish with Notes on Current Distribution. Great Basin Naturalist, 46(4):625 – 631.: https://ojs.lib.byu.edu/ojs/index.php/wnan/article/viewArticle/1907

Utah Division of Wildlife Resouces. October 01, 2009 Crayfishing for fun and for food. https://wildlife.utah.gov/fishing/crayfish.php [Accessed Nov 13,, 2009]