Wild About Utah Archives - Page 85 of 145

November 26, 2018December 18, 2018

Bird Feeding in Winter

Most people enjoy watching birds, except for their occasional deposits on cars or windows. In an earlier program, I mentioned at least fifteen benefits that birds provide to humans and planet Earth. But as human population and developments increase, the survival of many bird species becomes threatened. Now, as winter approaches, colder weather and lack of food adds to the life-threatening dilemmas birds face. Some birds migrate to warmer habitats, but for those that stay in the northern regions a helping-hand from humans is no doubt appreciated.

Presenting “gifts” of birdfeeders and seeds to others (and your own family) will help songbirds and fowls to survive so they can provide their songs and beauty in the Spring. Consider these tips:

Buy large birdfeeders so you don’t have to fill them so often. Wet seed can grow harmful bacteria, so use feeders with wide covers.

If deer, or other pests, invade your feeders, hang them up higher in trees.

Place feeders 10’ away from dense cover to prevent sneak attacks from cats.

Provide multiple feeders to increase amounts and diversity of foods.

“Favorite” winter foods depends on the species. Black Oil sunflower seeds are loved by most birds, but niger, millet, peanuts, corn, and wheat will attract a diverse range of birds. Experiment and see what comes to your feeders.

A combination of beef-fat, with seeds or fruit, is called suet. It is a high-energy food which helps birds stay warm. The 4” cakes are placed in small cages and are loved by flickers, woodpeckers and many other birds. Peanut butter is also relished by birds, but is more expensive than suet.

Once birds find your feeders, they will rely on them for regular food supplies. If your feeders become empty, especially during ice storms or blizzards, birds will have a hard time finding natural food. If you take a trip, have a neighbor keep your feeders filled.

Buy extra seed and store it in a cool, dry place like a covered plastic trash can which can be kept on a deck, porch, or in a garage.

Make sure the feeders are kept clean with hot water, and then dried, about once a month.

Some birds, like juncos, towhees, doves and pheasants prefer eating seed which has fallen to the ground. Compact the snow below your feeders so they can find that seed easier.

Unless you live near a natural water source, place a pan of water near a feeder on warmer days. Or you could consider a heated bird bath to provide drinking water.

If you have fruit trees or berry bushes, leave some of the fruit on the plants to provide natural foods.

You may wish to leave birdhouses and nest-boxes up all year for winter roosting sites.

Now the fun part comes. After your feeders have been discovered by some birds, word soon gets around the neighborhood and others will arrive. But do you know what they are? The Peterson Field Guidebooks are a great help for beginners because the illustrations are often grouped by color. Then you can become a citizen-scientist and submit your observations to Cornell’s Project Feederwatch or participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count each December. Look online for details.

Time to get started with your own feeders, or as gifts to others, and begin enjoying the colorful company of finches, woodpeckers, towhees, juncos, sparrows, doves and many others.

Credits:

Images: Courtesy & Copyright Ron Hellstern, Photographer
Audio: Contains bird audio Courtesy & Copyright Kevin Colver
Text: Ron Hellstern, Cache Valley Wildlife Association

Additional Reading

Feed the Birds, Jim Cane & Linda Kervin, Wild About Utah, Bridgerland Audubon Society, Dec 1, 2011, https://wildaboututah.org/tag/feeding-birds/

Winter Song Birds, Jim Cane & Linda Kervin, Wild About Utah, Bridgerland Audubon Society, Feb 3, 2009, https://wildaboututah.org/tag/feeding-birds/

Audubon Guide to Winter Bird-Feeding, Steve Kress, Audubon Magazine, Nov-Dec, 2010, https://www.audubon.org/magazine/november-december-2010/audubon-guide-winter-bird-feeding

Backyard Birding, Bird Feeding, US Fish & Wildlife Service(FWS), Last Updated: February 19, 2016, https://www.fws.gov/birds/bird-enthusiasts/backyard/bird-feeding.php

Backyard Birding, Helping our Feathered Friends, US Fish & Wildlife Service(FWS), Last Updated: June 1, 2016, https://www.fws.gov/birds/bird-enthusiasts/backyard/songbird-conservation.php

Backyard Bird-Feeding Resources, Birds at Your Feeder, Erica H. Dunn, Diane L. Tessaglia-Hymes, Project Feederwatch, https://feederwatch.org/learn/articles/backyard-bird-feeding-resources/

November 19, 2018May 17, 2019

Greenback Cutthroat Trout

In 2009, officials from the US Division of Wildlife Resources who were out searching for isolated populations of Colorado River Cutthroat Trout found something better—and far more perplexing. Within a 1.2-mile stretch of Beaver Creek, which runs down the eastern flank of the La Sal Mountains near Moab, Utah, surveyors discovered a small, but genetically pure population of a subspecies of Cutthroat Trout known as the Greenback. The fish is not only rare among its fellow Cutthroats; it was heretofore unknown to Utah waters.

The natural history of the Greenback Cutthroat is fascinating! As a member of the genus Oncorhynchus, Greenback Cutthroat Trout trace their lineage back about 2 million years to Salmonid ancestors that chose to forego their return to the Pacific Ocean and instead pursued habitat further and further up the Columbia and Snake River drainages into the Green and Yellowstone River Basins. From here, cutthroat predecessors diversified into subspecies we know today: the Alvord, Bonneville, Humboldt, Lahontan, Yellowfin, Yellowstone, Colorado River, and, among others, the Greenback Cutthroat.

Greenbacks took a particularly arduous path to what is now their native home range. About 20,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene Epoch’s glacial maximum, Greenbacks hitched a ride via advancing ice sheets and their runoff, crossing eastward over the Continental Divide. And, historically, that’s where they’ve been found—east of the continental divide. However, in a 2014 summary report of a meeting among experts on the Greenback Cutthroat Trout’s whereabouts in Colorado, the US Fish and Wildlife Service says this about the fish’s home range: “Until recently, delineations of subspecies of cutthroat trout in Colorado were believed to follow geographic boundaries within the state, with greenback cutthroat trout on the eastern side of the Continental Divide and Colorado River cutthroat trout on the western side.” That seems to have changed.

Greenback Cutthroat Trout were found in Beaver Creek in the La Sal Mountains — Greenback Cutthroat Trout
were found in Beaver Creek
in the La Sal Mountains

Experts are at a loss as to how Greenbacks came to occupy the waters of Utah. Speculations abound from rogue fishermen stocking their favorite backwaters with favorite species from the Colorado Front Range to a remnant population of an ancient strand that may have ridden the glaciers all the way to La Sal runoffs. What’s even more perplexing is the population’s pure genetic makeup. Cutthroat Trout hybridize easily with other fish; but the Beaver Creek population hasn’t. One reason may be the creek’s inaccessibility. Disease and non-native trout haven’t threatened the resident Greenbacks; and so they have lived on undisturbed, unadulterated, and, until about a decade ago, unknown to their human counterparts. This gives the wildlife conservation community some hope for the fish’s viability moving forward.

Greenbacks currently only occupy roughly 1% of their historic native range and were once thought to be extinct altogether. This hardy and adventurous fish refuses to call it quits, though. Who knows, maybe the valiant reclamation of its old territory has already begun along so many other inaccessible and unadulterated creek beds.

I’m Josh Boling, and I’m Wild About Utah!

Credits:

Images:
Greenback Cutthroat Trout, Courtesy Fish and Wildlife Service, US Department of the Interior, Bruce Roselund, Photographer
Beaver Creek, LaSal Mountains, Courtesy Utah Division of Wildlife Resources,
Audio: Includes audio provided by Friend Weller, UPR
Text: Josh Boling, 2018

Sources & Additional Reading

Georg, Ron, Rare trout found in La Sal Mountains, The Times Independent, Moab, UT, May 14, 2009, https://moabtimes.com/bookmark/2560140-Rare-trout-found-in-La-Sal-Mountains

Prettyman, Brett, Greenback or not wildlife officials work to expand cutthroat population, The Salt Lake Tribune, Nov. 19, 2010, https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=50632061&itype=cmsid#gallery-carousel-446996

Thompson, Paul, A lifelong passion for native cutthroat trout, Wildlife Blog, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, April 10, 2017, https://wildlife.utah.gov/blog/2017/a-lifelong-passion-for-native-cutthroat-trout/

Greenback Cutthroat Trout, Western Native Trout Initiative, https://westernnativetrout.org/greenback-cutthroat-trout/

Greenback cutthroat found in Utah for first time, KSL/The Salt Lake Tribune/The Associated Press, May 1, 2009, https://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=6338134

November 12, 2018January 1, 2019

Colorado Plateau

Rivers and sandstone pretty much define the Colorado Plateau- perhaps my favorite landscape on our lovely planet. These past few weeks I’ve experienced some of its best in Dinosaur NM and Canyonlands NP with friends and students.

Those magnificent rivers- Green, Yampa, Colorado, San Juan- have worked their marvels slicing through thousands of feet of sandstone mixed with a bit of limestone and shale. To stand on a rim and look over a hundred miles of convoluted, tortured land form feasts the convolutions of one’s brain. And the contorted, gnarly juniper trees that adorn the rock seem to reflect those lands that nourish them, some nearing a thousand years of fire and storm.

“The landscape everywhere, away from the river, is of rock – cliffs of rock; plateaus of rock; terraces of rock; crags of rock – ten thousand strangely carved forms.” John Wesley Powell, July, 1869 on his first river trip through our Canyonlands.

I love the names assigned to the rock formations- Weber, Morgan, Cedar Mesa, Carmel, Navajo, Entrada, Kayenta, and so on, each associated with particular strange formations- arches, bridges, towers, turrets, endless. And the improbable snow covered peaks adding welcome contrast from the sun baked sandstone- Lasalles, Abajos, Henry’s- laccolithic bumps in the earth’s crust whose overburden of rock and soil stripped away by millions of years of storm and gravity.

Click for more information on ravens in Bryce Canyon National Park — Common Raven (Corvus corax)
Bryce Canyon National Park
Courtesy US National Park Service
And found on Wikipedia

Even more improbable are the myriad life forms that adorn these “waste” lands. Well over a thousand plant and insect species, hundreds of varied birds, mammal and reptiles. One bird in particular is a symbol of this wild, splendid country- they call it raven. Their intelligence and mischievousness are legendary. Last week I was the victim. I left a stack of Canyonlands books setting on a table. After an all day, epic hike I returned to a tattered book missing a few pages, and another small paperback gone. Can these enigmatic rascals read?

Another part of this magical country are the cultural leavings of the ancestral Pueblo and Fremont people. I always take pause when their startling presence appears. How could anyone survive, even a few weeks, let alone a few thousand years in this harsh, unforgiving environment? Only through an intimate relationship with their natural surroundings, especially plants. Who could grow a garden on poor sandstone generated soils with little rain and extreme temperatures? But they did. A wonderfully written book “Wild Plants and Native Peoples of the Four Corners” is a must read. It’s done with cultural sensitivity along with excellent details on preparing them for use- food, fiber, medicine and décor.

And finally, Ed Abbey and Terry Tempest Williams captured the spirit of these great lands in verse- “Desert Solitaire” and “Red, Passion and Patience in the Desert”, must reads.

Jack Greene, Getting wilder about Utah by the minute!

Credits:

Images: Courtesy Jack Greene
Audio: Contains Audio Courtesy and Copyright Friend Weller
Text: Jack Greene

Sources & Additional Reading:

Abbey, Edward, Desert Solitaire, Touchstone (January 15, 1990), https://www.amazon.com/Desert-Solitaire-Edward-Abbey/dp/0671695886/

Williams, Terry Tempest, Red, Passion and Patience in the Desert, Vintage (October 8, 2002), https://www.amazon.com/Red-Patience-Terry-Tempest-Williams/dp/0375725180/

Stegner, Wallace, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West, Penguin Books; Reprint edition (March 1, 1992), https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Hundredth-Meridian-Wesley-Opening/dp/0140159940/

Filmore, Robert, Geological Evolution of the Colorado Plateau of Eastern Utah and Western Colorado, University of Utah Press; 1st edition (March 15, 2011), https://www.amazon.com/Geological-Evolution-Colorado-Plateau-Eastern/dp/1607810042/

Dinosaur National Monument, National Park Service, US Department of the Interior,
https://www.nps.gov/dino/index.htm

Canyonlands National Park, National Park Service, US Department of the Interior,
https://www.nps.gov/cany/index.htm

November 5, 2018August 3, 2020

Western Forest Grouse

In the early winter, when most wildlife are migrating down the mountains, dusky grouse are heading up. The grouse rely on the evergreen needles for their sole food source during winter.

The female’s feathers are more camouflaged, while males are a slate grey.

In the Spring, during mating season, male duskies develop bright red air-sacs surrounded by pure white under-feathers on their necks. To attract the females, they make a deep hooting sound with their air sacs. This sound is made at the lowest decibel humans can hear. When close enough, researchers say they often feel the low vibrations of the hooting, before hearing it with their ears.

Although duskies are forest grouse, they are more closely related to prairie grouse than other forest grouse. They often use habitats, such as sagebrush and serviceberry outside of the forest canopy and can move up to 20 miles or more in a given year.

The other forest grouse species found in Utah, the ruffed grouse, prefer staying in a small area about 40 acres their whole life and are small, being slightly larger than a pigeon.

Western Forest Grouse: A dusky grouse female marked with a solar-powered GPS radio using a rump-style attachment. This was a brood hen with several small chicks with her. She was captured in July and released after several minutes of marking and data collection. Photo Credit: David Dahlgren — A dusky grouse female marked with a solar-powered GPS radio using a rump-style attachment. This was a brood hen with several small chicks with her. She was captured in July and released after several minutes of marking and data collection.
Photo Credit: David Dahlgren

They have a sole winter diet of aspen buds; and remain at a lower elevation during the winter. At night they burrow into snow caves to conserve body heat and energy.

The feathers of the ruffed grouse form a black band on their tails and black “ruffs” on their neck. These features are more prominent on males. During the spring breeding season, males produce a loud “drumming” sound with their wings to attract the females. The rhythm begins slowly then quickens to a climax.

Similar to their prairie cousins, forest grouse can be impacted by habitat fragmentation, human development, climate change, and improper grazing and may be a key species for these areas.

Due to the lack of scientific data, managers do not know the full impact these risks have on the forest grouse.

Western Forest Grouse: Researcher, Dr. Dwayne Elmore from Oklahoma State University, holding a male ruffed grouse after capture. The bag is used to contain the grouse while getting a weight. Photo Credit: David Dahlgren — Researcher, Dr. Dwayne Elmore from Oklahoma State University, holding a male ruffed grouse after capture. The bag is used to contain the grouse while getting a weight.
Photo Credit: David Dahlgren

David Dahlgren, assistant professor in the Quinney College of Natural Resources was discussing this deficit with Jason Robinson, upland game coordinator, for Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. Both recognized the potential benefits of using modern research techniques with forest grouse.

Dahlgren explains, “We wanted to get ahead of the ball.” If forest grouse, particularly duskies, are to be considered key species for our mountain ecosystems, we needed scientific information for management.

Dahlgren began the research with DWR in Fall 2015, in an area where the forest grouse get the highest hunting pressure – the Bear River Range, [in northern Utah, between Cache Valley and Bear Lake].

From 2015 to 2017, 120 grouse were leg banded. This provided data on harvest, habitat use, and survival.

Skyler Farnsworth, the project’s graduate student, discovered pointing dogs would help him find and capture grouse during the research. He started the project dog-less and ended with two bird dogs of his own.

Western Forest Grouse: An adult male dusky grouse in full breeding season display just after a snow in late April. Notice the red air sacs surrounded by white under-feathers, yellow eye combs, and the fanned tail with a grey band. Photo Credit: Skyler Farnsworth. — An adult male dusky grouse in full breeding season display just after a snow in late April. Notice the red air sacs surrounded by white under-feathers, yellow eye combs, and the fanned tail with a grey band.
Photo Credit: Skyler Farnsworth.

Of the 120 bands, only three bands have been returned since 2015 and one of those was found by a hiker after the bird had been caught by a predator.

Dahlgren explains, “With such a small return, the chance of [hunter harvest] impacting the population is very low, which is comforting and provides real data for forest grouse management.”

The research on the forest grouse is expanding. Dahlgren explains, “we recently started a similar project focused on dusky grouse in Nevada, working with the Nevada Department of Wildlife.”

Many partners have supported these forest grouse research projects including, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Nevada Department of Wildlife, Sportsman organizations and individuals. USU’s Agricultural Experiment Station provided the bulk of funding support.

This is Shauna Leavitt and I’m Wild About Utah.

Western Forest Grouse-Credits:
Photos: Courtesy & Copyright © Skyler Farnsworth and David Dahlgren
Text: Shauna Leavitt, Utah Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Quinney College of Natural Resources, Utah State University

Western Forest Grouse-Additional Reading

Additional Grouse Articles on Wild About Utah:

Leavitt, Shauna, Greater Sage-Grouse in Utah, Wild About Utah, July 2, 2018, https://wildaboututah.org/greater-sage-grouse-in-utah/

Leavitt, Shauna, South Canyon Sage-Grouse, Wild About Utah, Jan 22, 2018, https://wildaboututah.org/south-canyon-sage-grouse/

Leavitt, Shauna, Greater Sage Grouse Recovery, Wild About Utah, Sep 25, 2017, https://wildaboututah.org/greater-sage-grouse-recovery/

Leavitt, Shauna, Decreasing the Habitat Risks of Utah’s Southern Sage-Grouse, Wild About Utah, June 12, 2017, https://wildaboututah.org/greater-sage-grouse-in-utah/

Greene, Jack, Sage Steppe, Wild About Utah, Jun 15, 2015, https://wildaboututah.org/sage-steppe/

Liberatore, Andrea, Ruffed Grouse and the Christmas Bird Count, Wild About Utah, Dec 8, 2014, https://wildaboututah.org/ruffed-grouse-christmas-bird-count/

Kervin, Linda, Sage Grouse, Pronghorn Antelope and Fences, Wild About Utah, May 5, 2011, https://wildaboututah.org/sage-grouse-pronghorn-antelope-and-fences/
Western Forest Grouse