Podcast: Wild About Utah

Posted on

The Quiet Importance of Brine Flies

The Quiet Importance of Brine Flies: Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake, Courtesy Pixabay, wnk1029, contributor and photographer
Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake,
Courtesy Pixabay, wnk1029, contributor and photographer
It was early afternoon in mid-July 2019 and my first time setting foot on Antelope Island. As a newcomer to Utah, I was itching to explore the local sights and had come to learn about the impressive annual shorebird migration from my friend, a bird enthusiast and fellow graduate student. Brimming with excitement, and a little put off by the smell of Great Salt Lake mud wafting through the open windows, we parked the car in the Antelope Island Marina parking lot and jumped out onto the shore of the famed isle. Thousands of birds dotted the water around the harbor, and the ubiquitous Antelope Island spiders blanketed the bushes with innumerable webs. But it wasn’t the birds stretching as far as the eye could see out on the waters of Great Salt Lake, or the impressive number of spiders skittering past our car tires that left a lasting impression on me.

As we stepped out onto the beach to get a closer look at the birds bobbing on the salt water and to set up the birder’s favorite tool, a spotting scope, the dark grey sand under our feet sprang to life with a gentle buzz. The sand, or what I thought was sand, was actually a shoal of brine flies, easily numbering in the millions. Surprised by our discovery and shorebirds completely forgotten for the moment, we walked slowly along the shore, and with each step, a cloud of flies jumped up to avoid our footfalls, gently settling back down behind us as we walked on.

Brine flies, which are small flies in the genus Ephydra, are a common occurrence around the lake. These gentle flies do not bite, and as adults, they don’t even have mouth parts to feed with. Much like mayflies, they only live a few days as adults, with the goal of reproducing and laying their eggs back in the waters of Great Salt Lake to start a new generation of flies.

Similar to an aquatic caterpillar, their larval stage lives in the briny waters of Great Salt Lake, feeding mostly on algae and other organic matter. At their peak population around Great Salt Lake each year, brine flies are estimated to number in the billions, and the skins they shed as they emerge from the water as adults pile up on the shore in incomprehensible numbers.

As such an abundant insect around the lake, they provide critical food for all manner of creatures. Our momentarily forgotten shorebirds are avid predators of brine flies, and, hungry from migration, these birds snap up brine flies by the thousands. Phalaropes, stilts and sandpipers are just a few of the bird species that feast on brine flies. Gulls love to feast on brine flies, and in silly gull fashion, go about chasing them up and down the beaches with open beaks and loud wails. Remarkably, for eared grebes, brine flies can make up 40 percent of their diet, while the remainder usually consists of another Great Salt Lake denizen, the brine shrimp.

Birds aren’t the only ones that rely on brine flies for food. Spiders, like the ones keeping us company in the Antelope Island bushes, as well as beetles and other invertebrates, feast on brine flies too. In fact, as scientists say, brine flies are an important part of our Great Salt Lake ecosystem. Walking slowly along the shore with my eyes pointed down toward the great clouds of brine flies at my feet, it was easy to see how their sheer numbers could feed an army of critters.

As someone who spends most of my time thinking about birds that eat fish and how to study them, I’m not one to trouble myself with thoughts about insects often, but thinking back on that remarkable July afternoon and the struggling health of our Great Salt Lake, I can’t help worry a little for the future of our gentle brine flies.

I’m Aimee Van Tatenhove, and I’m wild about Utah.

Credits:
Images: Courtesy Pixabay, Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake, wnk1029, contributor and photographer, https://pixabay.com/photos/antelope-island-great-salt-lake-lake-2659982/
Sound: Courtesy & Copyright Aimee Van Tatenhove
Text: Aimee Van Tatenhove, USU Department of Biology, Utah State University
Additional Reading: Lyle Bingham, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Additional Reading

Pieces by Aimee Van Tatenhove on Wild About Utah

Brine Flies, Great Salt Lake Ecosystem Program, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, State of Utah, September 01 2021, https://wildlife.utah.gov/gslep/wildlife/brine-flies.html

McPherson, Mia, Great Salt Lake Brine Flies – Important Food Source For California Gulls, OnTheWingPhotography.com, July 14th, 2018, https://www.onthewingphotography.com/wings/2018/07/14/great-salt-lake-brine-flies-important-food-source-for-california-gulls/

Van Elegem, Bernard, Great Salt Lake, Lord of the Flies – Part I, brine flies and bird abundance, June 16, 2015, https://www.bernardvanelegem.com/news/great-salt-lake-lord-flies-part-i-brine-flies-and-bird-abundance

Van Elegem, Bernard, Great Salt Lake, Lord of the Flies – Part II, Cicindela hemorrhagica, June 17, 2015, https://www.bernardvanelegem.com/news/great-salt-lake-lord-flies-part-ii-cicindela-hemorrhagica

Brine Flies scatter as you walk through, Great Salt Lake State Park & Marina, State Parks, Utah Department of Natural Resources, State of Utah, June 11, 2020, https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3137388862978108

Great Salt Lake Brine Flies, Antelope Island State Park, State Parks, Utah Department of Natural Resources, State of Utah, https://youtu.be/pktAdULIdZk
Brine flies abound around Great Salt Lake in the summer. As far as insects go, these are some of the “good guys”

Posted on

The Natural Ebbs of the World

The Natural Ebbs of the World: Snow Goose Courtesy Pixabay, Hans Benn, Photographer
Snow Goose
Courtesy Pixabay, Hans Benn, Photographer
I can never tell if the anachronism of daylight savings is ironic. Maybe that’s due to my newly syncopated circadian rhythm. Or maybe it’s all a dream. Or perhaps, it’s somewhere in between.

Either way, it strikes me odd that we take our supposed linear direction on time from circular mechanisms that are unable to change of their own volition, except for once a year where we make morning seem earlier, even though it really isn’t, then in the fall we realize what an odd choice we made and go back on our decision.

Winter then sees us forget about our lapse. The cloud of amnesia, gained through time influencing time, shrouds our minds, so that come spring we’re intellectual infants, fresh as the crisp crocus air.

Now, I am actually not opposed to daylight savings. In fact, I’m very for it, though I differ in how it is implemented. I actually enjoy that, twice a year, our inner apes get to upset the rigid clockwork of clockwork, and use arbitrary tradition to tell our shared system of accountability that it does not have all the sway, and that it is ultimately, itself, an arbitrary tradition. I like that we get to be human in a world that is increasingly machine.

My umbrage with daylight savings, then, is that it isn’t wild enough. A strict date to spring and fall? That doesn’t seem right. It’s too orderly. My vote is that in every town, we pick one critter who wakes then dens, or arrives then leaves, and base our system of time off of something that is actually real, tangible, and unconditional. Maybe for the towns here in Utah, it can be a ground squirrel. Or a swan. Or RV tourists. Instead of having a strict immobile date, we give all time its greatest accountability: the natural ebbs of the world. We give time the context it is itself within.

This system I’d find actually meaningful, and just great fun. Imagine a likeness to groundhog day, twice a year, in every town, with all sorts of menagerie. The message we’ll send is that time doesn’t control us, nor we time. Instead time is controlled by those who are unaware of their own influence. Each living thing would have a potential chance to alter how we conduct ourselves. In this way, daylight savings no longer becomes anachronistic, or even ironic. Instead, daylight savings can become a dialogue with the world; a conversation with our participation in life. Time becomes grounded in reality. I imagine this conversation:

“What time is it?”
“Depends, has the first snow goose arrived?”
“No, but the last leaves fell off the box elder by the post office.”
“Then that explains why Bill isn’t here and we are.”

So this daylight savings, if you or someone you know is grumbling that all of this could be so much easier, just say yes, it could, and pitch them this idea if you’re keen on it, too. Let them see that we don’t have to be where we are, with an inane change of the time based on time, but instead we could change the time based on the world which is alive and vibrant around us each day. We could force ourselves to participate in time, by seeing that who we are depends on where we are and the life which encircles the lives we live. Maybe then, we can lose the ironic anachronism we currently have, and let our circadian rhythms be aligned to those natural forces which run deeper than a calendar date wherever, or whenever, you are.

I’m Patrick Kelly and I’m Wild About Utah.
 
Credits:
Images: Courtesy Pixabay, Hans Benn, Photographer https://pixabay.com/photos/goose-white-snow-goose-flies-4190673/
Audio: Courtesy & © Kevin Colver https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections
Text:    Patrick Kelly, Director of Education, Stokes Nature Center, https://www.logannature.org
Included Links: Patrick Kelly & Lyle Bingham, Webmaster, WildAboutUtah.org

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah, Posts by Patrick Kelly

Stokes Nature Center in Logan Canyon, https://www.logannature.org/

Posted on

Kokanee

Kokanee flash of red Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer
Kokanee flash of red
Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer
Every fall, tucked away in the southern tip of Cache Valley, and hidden 30 feet below the water surface of Porcupine Reservoir, a drama begins to unfold. The biological clock of the four year old Kokanee salmon ticks over. Childhood is over is over and it is time to spawn. This beautiful silver fish turns red. The jaw of the males elongates and a hump grows on its back. Both the males and females congregate at the inlet where Cinnamon Creek flows into the reservoir. One by one they point their heads upstream and push themselves against the current.

Walking along the creek banks, looking down into the water, it’s impossible not to feel stirred by the spectacle of flashing red bodies fighting against the current. It’s a journey of fits and starts – a quick surge ahead and then a quivering pause. This is a real fight – the life energy of the fish against the relentless current. Just how difficult it is becomes apparent when the current will catch a fish and send it careening down steam until it recovers its balance and starts upstream again.

Beaver dams obstructing Kokanee swimming upstream Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer
Beaver dams obstructing Kokanee swimming upstream
Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer
What we are seeing is a short version of the incredible journey made by their close cousins, the Sockeye Salmon, who travel 900 miles from their birthplace along the tributaries of the Snake River, all the way into the salty ocean, and back again. In contrast, the Kokanee from Porcupine will only travel a few miles, especially this year as beavers have been busy building dams across Cinnamon Creek, and very few Kokanee make it up and over the first few.

Stopped from going further upstream, the female goes to work , using her tail to clear a nest of gravel. She lays her eggs and a nearby male swoops in and covers them with his milt. The female covers the fertilized eggs with more gravel and it is done. The Kokanee life cycle comes full circle, and the adults will die. The eggs are on their own. If all goes well, some will hatch in November. By April they will have grown into fingerlings and will get flushed downstream in the Spring run off. They will then spend the next few years in the reservoir before it is their turn to turn red and point their heads upstream.

The Department of Natural Resources originally stocked Kokanee into the reservoir as a sport fish. I asked a fisherman friend how one goes about catching a Kokanee, and he said you need a boat and a fish finder. The Kokanee live in schools about 30-50 feet below the surface, filling their bellies mostly by filtering zooplankton from the reservoir water. Once the fisherman finds the fish, he trolls right through the middle of the school with a shiny rectangle of metal called a dodger, along with pink and green plastic squid and a bit of colored corn. The fish strike the line out of anger, not out of hunger. “They’re a very tasty fish,” my friend said. “And a beautiful silver. We call it ‘catching chrome'” But for me the most beautiful color of Kokanee will always be the flash of red as it fights its way upstream. And the best taste will be the bit of awe and wonder we get as we catch a glimpse into this unique circle of life as it plays out in our natural world.

Kokanee swimming upstream Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer
Kokanee swimming upstream
Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer
This is Mary Heers and I am Wild About Utah.

Credits:
Photos: Courtesy & Copyright © Mary Heers
Photos: Courtesy
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright © Friend Weller, Utah Public Radio upr.org
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

Boling, Josh, Kokanee Salmon in Utah, Wild About Utah, October 9, 2017, https://wildaboututah.org/kokanee-salmon-in-utah/

Strand, Holly, Kokanee Life Cycle, Wild About Utah, September 19, 2013, https://wildaboututah.org/kokanee-life-cycle/

Strand, Holly, Kokanee Salmon, Wild About Utah, October 7, 2008, https://wildaboututah.org/kokanee-salmon/

9 places to see bright red kokanee salmon in Utah this fall, News, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Department of Natural Resources, State of Utah, September 1, 2019, https://wildlife.utah.gov/news/utah-wildlife-news/1003-see-red-kokanee-salmon.html

Ross, Crystal, Where to see Utah’s spawning kokanee salmon, Wildlife Blog, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, August 29, 2019, https://wildlife.utah.gov/news/wildlife-blog/755-where-to-see-utah-s-spawning-kokanee-salmon.html

Fishing Guidebook 2021, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Department of Natural Resources, State of Utah, September 1, 2019, https://wildlife.utah.gov/guidebooks/2021_fishing_guidebook.pdf

Sockeye Salmon (Kokanee) – Oncorhynchus nerka, Utah Species, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Department of Natural Resources, State of Utah, 2019, https://fieldguide.wildlife.utah.gov/?species=oncorhynchus%20nerka

DeMoss, Jeffrey (with Eli Lucero underwater Kokanee photo), The journey home: Kokanee salmon make annual Cache spawning run, The Herald Journal,
Sep 17, 2015, https://www.hjnews.com/allaccess/the-journey-home-kokanee-salmon-make-annual-cache-spawning-run/article_235386ec-27a5-575f-872b-3702f3ded215.html

Ockey, Natalie, Kokanee Salmon Run in Utah. Utah’s Adventure Family, Last updated September 27, 2020, https://www.utahsadventurefamily.com/kokanee-salmon-run-in-utah/

Posted on

Brushes

Paintbrush (Castilleja) Courtesy and Copyright © by Shannon Rhodes, photographer
Paintbrush (Castilleja)
Courtesy and Copyright © by Shannon Rhodes, photographer
Of all the lovely wildflowers to enjoy in Utah, indian paintbrush has to top my list. The nickname “prairie fire” is an accurate one, highlighting the variety of colors we find: reds, oranges, yellows, pinks, purples, and sometimes a mixture of two. In Tomie dePaola’s children’s picture book “The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush,” Little Gopher discovers “brushes filled with paint, each one a color of the sunset.” The legend is a flashy tale celebrating this member of the figwort family and stories captured in rock art. Of course, our petroglyphs are fascinating, but I like to imagine how the pictographs adorning many of Utah’s “learning rock” sandstone walls may have been painted with brushes, fingers, and other tools many centuries ago.

Often, when we see indian paintbrush, whether we’re in Utah’s deserts up in elevation through subalpine meadows, we also see sagebrush. They are both native to Utah. In fact, some species of indian paintbrush are root-parasites for sagebrush, intertwining roots to access water and nutrients because they lack small hairs on their own.

Rabbitbrush (Chrysothamnus nauseosus) Courtesy and Copyright © by Shannon Rhodes, photographer
Rabbitbrush (Chrysothamnus nauseosus)
Courtesy and Copyright © by Shannon Rhodes, photographer
The Utah State University fight song captures the love we have for the spots in Utah where sagebrush grows. To celebrate Aggie homecoming, my first grade class went out this week to explore describing adjectives of sagebrush compared to those for rabbitbrush, another brush native in Utah. One student wrote that rabbitbrush smells like strawberries and is bushy yellow. Another thought that it looks like a banana, smells sweet, and likes bees and rocks. Alternately, a student wrote that sagebrush is minty, soft, and “smells horrible.” We learned to recognize the sagebrush leaf three-toothed tridents and the magical way rubbing the leaves on paper both releases and traps that distinctive fragrance.

Mae Timbimboo Parry, once a recordkeeper of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone, sketched how to identify sagebrush in much the same way. In his appendix of “The Bear River Massacre: A Shoshone History,” Darren Parry shares his grandmother’s handwritten field notes about sagebrush, indicating its use in tea and purifying ceremonies. I was surprised at first that she did not include indian paintbrush in the list of plants until I realized that willow, wildrose, sego lily, and sunflower all had practical uses beyond their beauty. Some have said that the sagebrush is the backbone of the West, and I would add that indian paintbrush adds a splash of color.

Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) Courtesy and Copyright © by Shannon Rhodes, photographer
Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata)
Courtesy and Copyright © by Shannon Rhodes, photographer
Along with horsebrush, buckbrush, blackbrush, bitterbrush which is also known as antelopebrush, and rabbitbrush, indian paintbrush and sagebrush tell a Utah story as distinctive as that portrayed in the brushstrokes of the pictographs of this land.

I’m Shannon Rhodes, and I’m wild about Utah.

Credits:
Images: Courtesy & Copyright © Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Audio: Courtesy & © Kevin Colver https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/
Text:     Shannon Rhodes, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University https://edithbowen.usu.edu/
Additional Reading Links: Shannon Rhodes

Additional Reading:

Alpine Nature Center. Is It Rabbitbrush or Is It Sagebrush? https://www.alpinenaturecenter.org/rabbit-vs-sage.html

de Paola, Tomie. The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush. Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. 1988. https://www.tomie.com/https://www.audubon.org/news/celebrating-sagebrush-wests-most-important-native-plant

Johnson, Jeff. Head of Sinbad Pictographs in San Rafael Swell. https://thetrekplanner.com/head-of-sinbad-pictographs-san-rafael-swell-utah/

Larese-Casanova, Mark. Desert Plants Field Book. Utah Master Naturalist. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1911&context=wats_facpub

Mozdy, Michael. Bold Figures, Blurred History: The Great Gallery in Horseshoe Canyon. October 2, 2016. https://nhmu.utah.edu/blog/2016/09/29/bold-figures-blurred-history-great-gallery-horseshoe-canyon

Miller, Pam, and Blaine Miller. Rock Art in Utah. https://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/r/ROCK_ART.shtml

Parry, Darren. The Bear River Massacre: A Shoshone History. https://heritageandarts.utah.gov/the-bear-river-massacre-a-shoshone-history-a-conversation-with-darren-parry/

Repandshek, Kurt. Traces of a Lost People. The Smithsonian Magazine. March 2005. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/traces-of-a-lost-people-84026156/

Scotter, Troy, and Nina Bowen. The Rock Art of Utah. Utah Rock Art Research Association. May 13, 2020. https://urara.wildapricot.org/page-18203

Strand, Holly. Woody Plants of Utah. Wild About Utah, December 15, 2011. https://wildaboututah.org/tag/rabbitbrush/

Strand, Holly. Sagebrush. Wild About Utah, January 14, 2009. https://wildaboututah.org/sagebrush/

Susec, David. The Barrier Canyon Rock Art Style. The B.C.S. Project. https://www.bcsproject.org/barrierstyle.html

U.S. National Park Service. Seeing Rock Markings in a Whole New Way. https://www.nps.gov/articles/cany-rock-markings-photo.htm

Wampler, Fred. Paintbrush and Sagebrush. University of Mary Washington Gallery. https://www.umwgalleries.org/paintbrush-and-sagebrush/

Young, Lauren. Saving the American West’s Sagebrush Sea. May 19, 2001. https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/saving-sagebrush/