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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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Earl Douglass and Dinosaur National Monument

Douglass Quarry
Dinosaur National Monument
Courtesy National Parks Service

1500-1600 bones are exposed in the wall
Douglass Quarry
Dinosaur National Monument
Courtesy National Parks Service

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

Dinosaur fever was rampant in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Andrew Carnegie, the wealthy steel magnate, was not immune. He wanted a huge dinosaur skeleton for the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. In 1908, Museum Director W.J. Holland and paleontologist Earl Douglass explored the hills along the Green River near Jensen UT. They found a 6 foot thigh bone of a dinosaur. Douglass marked the spot and returned the following year to explore some more.

It didn’t take Douglass very long to get what he was after– in August of that same year, he came upon the tail section of an Apatasaurus in Morrison Formation outcrops near Jensen, UT. Within weeks, Douglass had uncovered an almost complete skeleton, including 64 tail vertebrae, more than twice as many that had ever been found in this type of dinosaur. Then to his amazement, a second Apatasaurus lay right beneath the first!

There was plenty more to uncover. For 15 years Douglass worked what became known as the Carnegie Quarry. He unearthed nearly 20 complete skeletons of Jurassic dinosaurs, including Diplodocus, Dryosaurus, Stegosaurus, Barosaurus, and Camarasaurus.

Local residents in Jensen and Vernal supported Douglass’s. They visited him while he worked, sold him food and supplies and occasionally assisted in excavations. Eventually they began to dream about the quarry’s potential as a tourist attraction and the effect that would have on their economy. And although Douglass worked for Carnegie, he shared the locals’ vision of a public exhibit of skeletons on location in northeast Utah.

Unfortunately, public education and improvement of local economies were NOT goals of the early dinosaur industry. The Carnegie Museum shipped all excavated material back to Philadelphia. In effect, the dinosaur quarry was like any other mine being stripped of valuable material. Furthermore, the Carnegie refused access to other research parties—including those of the National Museum and the University of Utah.

In 1915, the federal government tried to break the monopolistic hold Carnegie held on excavations by establishing Dinosaur National Monument. At first the Monument was an 80 acre tract around the quarry. (Later it was enlarged to encompass the spectacular canyons of the Green and Yampa Rivers in neighboring Colorado.) In 1916, Congress created the National Park Service, which took control of National Monuments. But without funds and political interest, visitor infrastructure in the Monument remained undeveloped for decades.
In 1948, state funds helped establish the Utah Field House of Natural History in nearby Vernal. Then in 1957 that a public park exhibit was created to showcase the Carnegie quarry itself—just as Douglass and Utah residents had desired. Nearly 2,000 bones were exposed in place forming an entire wall of the visitor center. Sadly, the building was closed in 2006 due to the serious safety hazards caused by an inadequate foundation.

In April of this year, the Park announced the award of $13.1 million in stimulus funds to demolish and replace condemned portions of the Quarry Visitor Center. Construction is anticipated to take between a year and a year and a half; the reopening the quarry exhibit and visitor center could be as early as summer 2011. Perhaps at last the quarry in Dinosaur National Monument will have a memorial that is worthy of its remarkable, ancient inhabitants.

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

Credits:
Images: Courtesy National Parks Service
Text: Holly Strand, Stokes Nature Center
Additional Reading:

Harvey, Mark W.T. 1991. Utah, The National Park Service, And Dinosaur National Monument, 1909-56, Utah Historical Quarterly, Number 3 (Summer 1991) p. 243 https://issuu.com/utah10/docs/uhq_volume59_1991_number3 [ Accessed December 2023]

National Park Service, US Dept of Interior. Dinosaur National Monument. https://www.nps.gov/dino/index.htm [ Accessed September 2009]

Utah History Encyclopedia. 1994. Dinosaur National Monument. Edited by Allan Kent Powell, former Public History Coordinator at the Utah State Historical Society. https://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/d/DINOSAUR_NATIONAL_MONUMENT.shtml [Accessed September 2009]

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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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Aflame with Color

Canyon or Big-Toothed Maple
In a natural landscape
Acer grandidentatum
Courtesy Michael Kuhns
Extension.usu.edu

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

The canyons and valleys of Utah will soon be awash with brilliant fall hues. Cascades of red, orange and gold will blanket the hillsides as the weather turns cooler and morning frost dusts the mountain ridges.

The Canyon Maple is one of Utah’s main sources of autumn color. Like most maple species, its leaves are carved into deep lobes. The leaves are medium-to-bright green now, but soon the entire tree will glow with spectacular color.
Canyon maple is found throughout Utah at medium elevations between 4,500 to 7,500 feet. It tends to grow on lower slopes and canyon bottoms in the mountains in association with Douglas-fir and junipers.

Its scientific name, Acer grandidentatum [AY-ser gran-dih-den-TAY-tum], means “Big Tooth”, referring to the tree’s distinctive lobed leaves with large, toothed margins. In fact, bigtooth maple is another common name for this species.

Canyon or Big-Toothed Maple
In a natural landscape
Acer grandidentatum
Courtesy Michael Kuhns
Extension.usu.edu

Some think that he canyon maple is related to the sugar maple of the northeastern and midwestern United States,” says forestry professor Mike Kuhns of Utah State University’s Department of Wildland Resources. It’s possible that long ago, the Rocky Mountains rose up and isolated a sugar maple population that eventually evolved into a unique species.

The canyon maple rivals its eastern relatives in fall color but does it produce sap suitable for tasty, syrup-covered waffles and pancakes? Back in 1970s, a group of scientists set out to determine just that. The trees were tapped and yielded plenty of sticky liquid. The color was very light, resembling light honey and the flavor was delicate and fruity, almost like pineapple. However, it was notably less sweet than the northeastern sugar maple. Of 30 panelists from Utah who participated in a taste test, 57 percent preferred eastern sugar maple syrup but the remaining 43 percent preferred canyon maple syrup.

Canyon or Big-Toothed Maple
leaves in late summer
Acer grandidentatum
Courtesy Michael Kuhns

The researchers concluded that while canyon maple sap was not practical for large-scale syrup production it might be enjoyable for individuals to try on a small scale on private land within its habitat range.

Syrup aside, the medium-sized tree thrives in Utah’s residential landscapes, parks and urban areas, as well as in the wild. Its year-round beauty, hardiness and manageable size make it a perennial favorite in the Beehive State.

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:

Canyon or Big-Toothed Maple
leaves in late summer & fall
Acer grandidentatum
Courtesy Michael Kuhns
Extension.usu.edu

Image: Courtesy and Copyright 2003 Michael Kuhns, Extension.usu.edu

Text: Holly Strand & Mary-Ann Muffoletto, Stokes Nature Center
Sources & Additional Reading

 

Barker, Phillip A.; Salunkhe, D. K. 1974. Maple syrup from bigtooth maple. Journal of Forestry. 72(8): 491-492. [9065] https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/saf/jof/1974/00000072/00000008/art00016

Kuhns, Michael. 2003. Canyon Maple: A Tree For the Interior West,” USU Forestry Extension, https://extension.usu.edu/forestry/HomeTown/Select_CanyonMaple.htm [2009, September 16].

Tollefson, Jennifer E. 2006. Acer grandidentatum. In: Fire Effects Information System, [Online]. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory (Producer). Available: https://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/ [2009, September 16]

Acer grandidentatum – Bigtooth Maple, Water-wise Plants for Utah Landscapes, https://www.waterwiseplants.utah.gov/default.asp?p=PlantInfo&Plant=17