Podcast: Wild About Utah

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May Day in Mendon

May Day in Mendon: Mendon May Pole Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer
Mendon May Pole
Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer

Mendon Glacier Lilly Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer
Mendon Glacier Lilly
Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer

Mendon Glacier Lilly Close Up Courtesy & © Mary Heers, PhotographerMendon Glacier Lilly Close Up
Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer

Mary's Neighbor's May Queen Crown Courtesy & &copy' Mary Heers, PhotographerMary’s Neighbor’s May Queen Crown
Courtesy & &copy’ Mary Heers, Photographer

Never have I seen the coming of spring celebrated with more flair than Mendon’s May Day.

On the first Saturday in May, Maypoles with 20 foot long ribbons appear in the Mendon town square. By ten o’clock a couple hundred residents have gathered around the poles. A piano in the gazebo strikes the first chords and the May Queen and her entourage step around the corner of the church and onto the green. Suddenly everybody gathered in the square begins to sing. “Come to the woodlands, away, away”. Most people know the whole song by heart.

The queen is crowned and the real showstopper, the braiding of the Maypoles, begins. Mendon’s young girls, grades 1-5, pick up the ribbons. Braiding the poles is complicated. The girls have been practicing after school three times a week since the beginning of April. Last week I dropped in on one of the practices and counted: 3 Maypoles, 64 girls, and a little bit of chaos. There’s a march, a minuet. More songs. Stepping in, stepping out, kneeling, skipping. The girls bob up and down as they sing ”Apples blossoms swing and sway..”

Mendon is one of Cache Valley’s oldest pioneer towns, tucked up against the Wellsville Mountains. Winters were long and hard, and the coming of spring eagerly awaited. The beginnings of May Day can be traced back to the days when the young girls in the pioneer settlement raced up the hillsides to gather spring wildflowers to put in their hair.

The first May Queen, Seny Sorenson, was crowned with a hand woven wreath of flowers in 1863. Since then, every year, rain or shine, a queen has been crowned in the town square, and the maypoles have been braided with the same songs and dance steps. 160 years, with only a few changes.

The queen’s name is now drawn out of a hat from a pool of the town’s high school juniors. And this year, for the first time ever, the young girls will be getting store bought dresses. In the past, the mothers were expected to sew the matching dresses for their daughters. Not knowing about this tradition, you can imagine how bewildered I was when I had just moved to Mendon and answered a knock on my door. A woman I didn’t know handed me a dress pattern and proceed to say something about altering the interfacing. I was pretty sure she was speaking English, but I couldn’t understand a word she was saying. Luckily my good friend and neighbor quickly brought me up to speed. This wonderful neighbor had actually been Mendon’s May Queen over 50 years ago. “Do you want to see my crown?” she asked as she opened the door to her hall closet. And there it was, a tight ring of pink and white flowers, secured to a tiny satin pillow with a fading ribbon.

I had one more stop to make. I hopped in my car and drove up to the Deep Canyon trailhead high above Mendon. A short way up the trail I found it– a whole hillside covered with curly yellow Glacier Lilies, the “early blooming flowers” from the May Day song “Maying and Straying…” And believe me, this was a sight worth singing about.

This is Mary Heers, and I’m Wild about Springtime in Utah.

Credits:
Photos: Courtesy & Copyright © Mary Heers, Photographer
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers AND Courtesy & Copyright © Kevin Colver, https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections/kevin-colver
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’ Postings

Mendon May Day, https://www.mendonutah.net/may_day.htm

May Day Celebration, Mendon City, Utah, https://mendoncity.org/may-day-celebration/

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Meadowlarks

Western Meadowlark Courtesy US FWS, Peter Pearsall, Photographer
Western Meadowlark
Courtesy US FWS, Peter Pearsall, Photographer
I loved Mark Brunson’s recent Wild About Utah on spring bird song, his words resonating with my own. Continuing on with his melodies leads me to a bird song that lifts me to new heights as I trot along a meadow trail. A bird of the prairie and countryside, the western meadowlark releases songs synonymous with spring grasslands flush with balsam root, lupine, death camas, larkspur, prairie smoke, and wind tossed grasses that shimmer in morning sun.

Western Meadowlark Courtesy US FWS, John & Karen Hollingsworth, Photographers
Western Meadowlark
Courtesy US FWS, John & Karen Hollingsworth, Photographers

Western Meadowlark Courtesy US FWS, Krista Lundgren, Photographer Western Meadowlark
Courtesy US FWS, Krista Lundgren, Photographer

Western Meadowlark Courtesy US FWS, John & Karen Hollingsworth, Photographers Western Meadowlark
Courtesy US FWS, John & Karen Hollingsworth, Photographers

It was a bit of shock when I learned this dazzling meadow beauty with a flashy yellow sunlit breast is a member of the blackbird family. I’m not alone in my reverence for this stunning songster. Six western states claim it as top bird, including our neighbor Wyoming.

A common and conspicuous bird across much of North America west of the Mississippi River, the Western Meadowlark was first officially described in 1805 by the famed explorer Meriwether Lewis. More than just a bird; it has captured the essence of open fields and wildflower meadows.

“Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn’t people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them?” — Rose Kennedy

In Native American mythology, the Western Meadowlark is often seen as a messenger and a symbol of sociability and communication. The Sioux revered the meadowlark for its beautiful songs and considered its appearance a good omen, heralding joy and harmony. Some folklore tells of meadowlarks leading lost people back to their homes using their distinctive calls, embodying the spirit of guidance and protection.

The Western Meadowlark is widely distributed across western and central North America, ranging from British Columbia and northern Michigan to central Texas and northern Mexico. They exhibit partial migratory behavior depending on geographic location. Birds residing in the northern parts of their range migrate as far south as Texas and northern Mexico during the winter months. Populations in southern regions tend to be more sedentary, often remaining in their breeding territories year-round.

The Western Meadowlark significantly impacts its ecosystem through diverse feeding activities. By consuming insects like caterpillars and grasshoppers, it helps control pest populations, thereby supporting plant health and agricultural productivity. Additionally, the bird’s seed and berry consumption aids in seed dispersal, facilitating plant propagation and maintaining biodiversity in grassland and prairie habitats.

Furthermore, the Western Meadowlark’s ground nesting contributes to soil aeration and nutrient cycling, enhancing ecosystem health and resilience. Its presence serves as an indicator of grassland ecosystem health.

To attract females, males execute a variety of visual displays, including puffing out their vibrant yellow throats, flapping their wings, and engaging in a distinctive hopping behavior. Vocalization also plays a critical role, with males using a series of warbling and twittering sounds interspersed with whistles.

Ingeniously, the female weaves a roof of grasses and other plant materials to form a waterproof dome, which protects the eggs and young from rain and predators.

May you be blessed by its song and vibrancy!

Jack Greene for Bridgerland Audubon Society, and I’m Wild about Utah’s prairie bird!

Credits:
The Wonders of Bird Migration
Picture: Courtesy USFWS, Peter Pearsall, John & Karen Hollingsworth, & Krista Lundgren, Photographers
Audio: Courtesy & © Kevin Colver https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/ as well as J. Chase and K.W. Baldwin.
Text: Jack Greene, Bridgerland Audubon, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/
Additional Reading: Lyle W Bingham, Webmaster, and Jack Greene, Author, Bridgerland Audubon, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading:

Jack Greene’s Postings on Wild About Utah, https://wildaboututah.org/author/jack/

Wilde, Steve, Western Meadowlark: Mythology, Habitat, Diet, and More, July 17, 2024, Global Birding Initiative, https://globalbirdinginitiative.org/bird-species/western-meadowlark/

Western Meadowlark, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Western_Meadowlark/overview

Western Meadowlark, Utah Birds, Utah County Birders, http://www.utahbirds.org/birdsofutah/ProfilesS-Z/WesternMeadowlark.htm
Other views: http://www.utahbirds.org/birdsofutah/BirdsS-Z/WesternMeadowlark.htm

Colver, Kevin, Recording Artist and Copyright Holder, Wextern Meadowlark, Western Soundscape Archive, Marriott Library, University of Library, https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1119499&facet_common_name_t=%22Western+Meadowlark%22&fd=title_t%2Csetname_s%2Ctype_t&facet_setname_s=uu_wss&facet_type_t=%22Sound%22

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Balancing Academic Focus and Student Exploration when Learning Outdoors

Balancing Academic Focus and Student Exploration when Learning Outdoors: Academic Focus in the Classroom Courtesy & Copyright Joseph Kozlowski, Photographer
Academic Focus in the Classroom
Courtesy & Copyright Joseph Kozlowski, Photographer
Academic Focus in the Outdoors Courtesy & Copyright Joseph Kozlowski, Photographer
Academic Focus in the Outdoors
Courtesy & Copyright Joseph Kozlowski, Photographer
A recent educational outdoor experience (I’ll call field experience) with a homeschooled family, prompted me to reflect on the balance between academic focus and student-exploration when teaching outdoors. Yes, some balance of the two is necessary. In the extreme case of too explicit of academic focus, why be outdoors at all and not just at school in desks? Why all the logistics and planning to transport kids to some outdoor location then sit them at a picnic table to complete worksheets about some science-based academic standard, when you could do that all at school? In the other extreme, if you ‘let kids run free’ for the entirety of the field experience, they’ll have fun and make discoveries, but they will likely miss the intentional connections to curriculum that made the trip academically justifiable. So, when you take kids to learn outdoors, what is the right balance between academic focus and student-exploration and how can the instructor support such a balance?

In my experience, the way to think about this balance isn’t so much as a mixing of the two, but more of a time sequence. Here’s what I’ve found works well.

  1. Prior to the field experience, formal academic focus should be the priority. Students should engage in academic activities that set them up to make explicit academic connections when they go to the field.
  2. Then, when in the field, emphasis should be on student-exploration, and priority should be given to fostering children’s wonder, discovery, and inquiry about nature. Importantly, the instructor plays a vital role in in the field in helping refine student-exploration so it leads to academic connections. One major role of the instructor in the field is to arrange an outdoor experience that will likely lead to an encounter with the academic material that was previously focused on. For example, if you had academically focused on animals taking advantage of their habitats to survive, you may want to take children to a specific area that might have downed trees from a gnawing beaver so as to naturally lead kids to make their own nature to academic connections. Another major role of the instructor in the field needs to be expertly observing the kids engaging in the environment and noticing when there is an opportunity to highlight a child’s nature-to-academic connection, or prompt children to make such connections.
  3. Finally, after the field experience, attention should shift back to academic focus in the form of documentation, which will help children formally connect their experiences in the outdoors to the academic topic they are learning about.

So, whether you’re a homeschooled family, related to the public- or private-school sector, or even just a parent considering how to make the most of an outdoor opportunity, consider this balance between formal academic focus and student-centered exploration in the wild Utah outdoors.

This is Dr. Joseph Kozlowski and I am Wild about Outdoor Education in Utah!

Credits:

Images: Courtesy & Copyright Joseph Kozlowski, Photographer, Used by Permission
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright © Kevin Colver, https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections/kevin-colver and including contributions from Anderson, Howe and Wakeman
Text:     Joseph Kozlowski, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University https://edithbowen.usu.edu/
Additional Reading Links: Joseph Kozlowski & Lyle Bingham

Additional Reading:

Joseph (Joey) Kozlowski’s pieces on Wild About Utah:

Experiential Education Archives, Wild About Utah https://wildaboututah.org/tag/experiential-education/

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Valuing Rodent Engineers

Welcoming Rodent Engineers: Spawn Creek Beaver Dam and Pond Courtesy and Copyright Bethany Neilson, Photographer
Spawn Creek Beaver Dam and Pond
Courtesy and Copyright Bethany Neilson, Photographer
Finding a beaver dam gives me a sense of discovery and connects me to the past. I fondly remember my parents pointing out dams when we drove up Logan canyon. Instinctively, we’d scan, hoping to see the animals that built and maintained those structures. When we talked about beaver dams, the conversation often turned to trappers who would rendezvous and re-supply in the Bear Lake and Cache valleys. We lived where history had happened, and I was eager to know more.

Years later, inspired by a history class, I read Dale Morgan’s Jedediah Smith and the Opening of the West. Morgan followed the travels of Smith and his fellow trappers who answered William Ashley’s 1822 ad in the Missouri Gazette requesting “ONE HUNDRED MEN, to ascend the river Missouri to its source, there to be employed for one, two, or three years….”

North American beaver (Castor canadensis) Courtesy US FWS, Larry Palmer, Photographer
North American beaver
(Castor canadensis)
Courtesy US FWS, Larry Palmer, Photographer
Ashley’s troop competed with the Hudson’s Bay Company, the American Fur Company and several native indigenous tribes, all trapping beaver. The story sounds familiar: beaver pelts, and later bird feathers, were used to create hats, and the movement to harvest them led to a significant decline in numbers. For the birds, this decline led to building refuges and other conservation efforts. But the plight of the beaver continued downhill as exploration and discovery encouraged an influx of settlers. For the next century, the remaining beaver were regarded by those settlers as invasive land-grabbers, in competition with efforts to direct water, mine and irrigate.

However, today beavers are gaining more respect as we better understand the benefits of their skills in supporting wildlife and wetland conservation. Researchers at Utah State University, including Joe Wheaton and Nick Bouwes of the Department of Watershed Sciences, are studying habitat improvement after beaver introduction as a cost-effective way to combat drought and fire.

Spawn Creek Beaver Dams Courtesy & Copyright Joe Wheaton
Spawn Creek Beaver Dams
Courtesy & Copyright Joe Wheaton, Photographer
They have repeatedly demonstrated, over the past few years, that beaver families can be introduced and thrive behind fabricated beaver dam analogues(BDAs). After release into the resulting ponds, the beavers take over maintenance and produce their own dams. Over time, these dams and their rodent engineers improve stream flows, raise water tables, and cool water temperatures.

In essence, active beaver dams create Mesic habitats where the land maintains a well-balanced supply of moisture throughout the growing season. These dams slow spring run-off as they retain water in ponds and the surrounding soil, thereby, securing water for fish, trees, birds and wildlife. The best part is that the beavers do the maintenance.

Installing Beaver Dam Analogues, Rio Cabolla, Santa Fe National Forest, Courtesy USDA Forest Service
Installing Beaver Dam Analogues
Post Fire Rehabilitation
Rio Cabolla, Santa Fe National Forest,
Courtesy USDA Forest Service

Completed Beaver Dam Analogues, Rio Cabolla, Santa Fe National Forest, Courtesy USDA Forest Service Completed Beaver Dam Analogues, Rio Cabolla, Santa Fe National Forest,
Courtesy USDA Forest Service

When wildfires occur, beaver oases preserve wildlife and habitat. However, if beaver and their habitats don’t exist in an area before a fire, they can still play a role. By retaining water with beaver dam analogs, we can create wetlands conducive to beaver habitat. In Joe Wheaton’s words, “We can’t dump beaver into a watershed that has burnt to the ground and expect them to do the restoration of degraded streams on their own…. What we can do post-fire is accelerate recovery with low-tech structures that make it easier to more quickly get beaver into an area and accelerate recovery. We’d like to help them do that.” (Utah State Magazine, Winter 2019, p.12)

To learn more about how birds, beaver and water are key to the understanding and improvement of our environment, and to find ways to get involved, check out this story on this wildaboututah.org.

I’m Lyle Bingham for Bridgerland Audubon, and I’m Wild About Utah

Credits:
Photos: Beaver Dam, Courtesy & Copyright © Bethany Neilson, Photographer https://uwrl.usu.edu/people/faculty/neilson-bethany
Spawn Creek Beaver Dams Courtesy & Copyright Joe Wheaton
Installing & Completed Beaver Dam Analogues, Rio Cabolla, Santa Fe National Forest, Courtesy USDA Forest Service
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright © Friend Weller, Utah Public Radio upr.org
Text: Lyle Bingham, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/
Additional Reading: Lyle Bingham, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah, Lyle Bingham’ Wild About Utah Postings

Strand, Holly, Beavers: The Original Army Corps of Engineers, April 29, 2010, https://wildaboututah.org/beavers-the-original-army-corps-of-engineers/

Leavitt, Shauna, Beaver–Helping Keep Water on Drying Lands, April 17, 2017, https://wildaboututah.org/the-beaver-helping-keep-water-on-drying-lands/

Leavitt, Shauna, Sixty In-stream Habitat Structures in Four Days: Demonstrating Creek Restoration Techniques, December 18, 2017, https://wildaboututah.org/sixty-instream-habitat-structures-in-four-days-demonstrating-creek-restoration-techniques/

Hellstern, Ron, Leave it to Beaver, July 30, 2018, https://wildaboututah.org/leave-it-to-beaver/

Leavitt, Shauna, Proposed Beaver Holding Facility in Millville, Utah, September 3, 2018, https://wildaboututah.org/proposed-beaver-holding-facility-in-millville-utah/

Leavitt, Shauna, Beaver in Utah’s Desert Rivers, July 6, 2020, https://wildaboututah.org/beaver-in-utahs-desert-rivers/

Heers, Mary, Beaver Tail Slap, October 12, 2020, https://wildaboututah.org/beaver-tail-slap/
(re-aired in late December 2021)

Other Favorites:

Randall, Brianna, Nature’s Engineers: How Beavers Boost Streamflows and Restore Habitat, https://www.sagegrouseinitiative.com/natures-engineers-how-beavers-boost-streamflows-and-restore-habitat/
Randall, Brianna, How Beavers Boost Stream Flows, National Wildlife Federation, January 8, 2020, https://blog.nwf.org/2020/01/how-beavers-boost-stream-flows/

Low-Tech Process Based Restoration of Riverscapes Design Manual, https://lowtechpbr.restoration.usu.edu/manual/

New Manual for Low-Tech Riparian Restoration, https://www.sagegrouseinitiative.com/new-manual-for-low-tech-riparian-restoration/

Randall, Brianna, Beavers, Water, and Fire—A New Formula for Success, Low-tech stream restoration works wonders for people and wildlife, National Wildlife Federation, October 30, 2018, https://blog.nwf.org/2018/10/beavers-water-and-fire-a-new-formula-for-success/

Nicholas Weber ,Nicolaas Bouwes,Michael M. Pollock,Carol Volk,Joseph M. Wheaton,Gus Wathen,Jacob Wirtz,Chris E. Jordan, Alteration of stream temperature by natural and artificial beaver dams, May 17, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176313 OR https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0176313

Prettyman, Brett, Dolling (SLTRIB), Justin(UT DWR), Beavers in Utah, Creators of Habitat, The Salt Lake Tribune & Utah DWR, Oct 15, 2009
https://youtu.be/cMhaYRNLTno
Utah’s population of beaver has recovered since the days when they were trapped by mountain men, but some people wonder if moving beaver to traditional habitats may help deal with drought.

Utah Beaver Management Plan, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, https://wildlife.utah.gov/pdf/furbearer/beaver_plan_2010-2020.pdf

Birds, Beaver and Water in a Changing Climate, Bridgerland Audubon, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/birds-beaver-and-water-in-a-changing-climate/

Goldfarb, Ben, Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, Chelsea Green Publishing, March 8, 2019, https://www.amazon.com/Eager-Surprising-Secret-Beavers-Matter/dp/1603589082/