Great Horned Owl and Chick Courtesy US FWS George Gentry, PhotographerNo, I did not hear the owl call my name- meaning my number is up and death is imminent according to some native tribes. But I do hear them call. The great horned owl is also referred to as the “hoot owl”. There are few owl species that hoot in our area, and those who do so are extremely rare.
Great horned owls are great in stature- second only to great grays among N. American owls. Further, they are fierce predators and valiant protectors of their young. Don’t mess with their nest!
Great Horned Owl Chick Courtesy US FWS Gary Stolz, PhotographerDue to its ferocious nature it is often referred to as the “Tiger of the Air”. When established in a territory, the Great Horned Owls drive other owls away, and may eat a few for good measure. They are both nocturnal and diurnal hunters, especially during the breeding season & when they are raising their young. They have a large variety of prey including insects, most small mammals including skunks, foxes, domestic cats, & birds up to size of herons and Redtail hawks. Its prey can often weigh up to 3 times the weight of bird itself.
Great Horned owls are often monogamous. They usually nest in old nests made by other raptors, often by Red-Tailed Hawks. They have been known to nest in caves, on cliff ledges, rocky outcrops and in cactuses. They usually start breeding very early in comparison to most owls, often from December to March when hooting reaches its peak.
Several American Indian tribes believe owls are associated with the souls of the dead. When a virtuous person died, they would become a Great Horned Owl. If wicked, they would become a Barn Owl. The Hopis Indians believed that the Great Horned Owl helped their peaches grow. They were believed to be a symbol of divine wisdom by Creek Indians.
I’m sure glad to have these divine, wise birds in my neighborhood! Great Horned Owl Courtesy US FWS, Karen Laubenstein, PhotographerJack Greene for Bridgerland Audubon Society, and I’m wild about Utah!
Sego lily bulbs are edible, either raw or cooked, and were used as food by the Cheyenne. The sweet-tasting bulbs were often dried for later use. Caption & Photo Courtesy US NPS, Michael Wheeler, PhotographerWith Pioneer Day’s a few weeks away, it’s time to honor a very special plant that saved many Utah pioneers.
It’s been a banner year for our state flower. The sego lily has graced our meadows since early June, now in its late stages at lower elevations. It has generated many stories in our state. Before I launch them, I must compliment it’s delicate beauty and love for adverse conditions- the dry, rocky soils in which it’s found. The sego lily personifies the tough, resilient, beautiful pioneer spirit.
Brigham Young declared the sego lily “a heaven sent source of food.” Friendly Native Americans taught Mormon settlers how to harvest and prepare the bulbs for much needed survival food when a devastating cricket infestation destroyed crops.
From pioneer journals: Sego Lily Courtesy US NPS, Nancy Julian, Photographer“”In the spring of 1848, our food was gone. Along the month of April we noticed all the foothills were one glorious flower garden. The snow had gone, the ground was warm. We dug thousands of sego roots, for we heard that the Indians had lived on them for weeks and months. We relished them and carried them home in bucketful’s. How the children feasted on them, particularly when they were dried, for they tasted like butternuts.” Elizabeth Huffaker, Salt Lake City
And here is another one:
“In my childhood our whole group of children used to go east of town, each carrying a sego digger. It was a piece of wood sharpened on one end, and flat on the other. We would just go out of town and look for segos, which were plentiful. When we found them we each went to digging by putting the sharp end of the stick into the ground close beside the sego, and pressing down on the flat end of the digger until it was a few inches in the ground. Sometimes we pounded on the top of the digger with a rock…when the stick was far enough into the ground to suit us, we just pushed it to one side and up came the segos. Then we ate them, and oh how we enjoyed hunting them.” Lorena Washburn Larsen, 1868, Manti, UT
Native Americans considered the sego lily a sacred plant and developed culinary uses for its bulbs, seeds, and flowers. Many tribes created a healthful porridge from roasted or boiled sego lily bulbs. Several tribes considered it sacred. For the Navajo it was one of the “Life Plants” used for ceremonial purposes. Sego was derived from the Indian word Sego. Many Indian women were named Sego or Sego-go-chee. The Spanish named it mariposa, their word for butterfly for these beautiful mountainside flowers looked like butterflies.
The sego lily was formally designated as the Utah State Flower in 1911 chosen for its natural beauty as well as its historical significance.
The lily gets its scientific name Calochortus Nuttalli, from Thomas Nuttall, a naturalist, who collected the sego lily in 1811 while traveling along the Missouri River. It’s found throughout the western states. Please do not disturb this iconic beauty. Photos are encouraged!
Jack Greene for Bridgerland Audubon Society, I continue to be infatuated with Utah’s wildness!
Credits:
Images: Courtesy US NPS, Michael Wheeler, Photographer
Courtesy US NPS, Nancy Julian, Photographer
Audio: Courtesy & Copyright Friend Weller, Utah Public Radio
Text: Jack Greene, USU Sustainability Program Volunteer, Bridgerland Audubon Society
LORENA EUGENIA WASHBURN, Autobiography, Published by her Children, Brigham Young University Press, 1962, [Abandoned & misappropriated link removed Feb 19, 2025]
Young, Levi Edgar, The Sego Lily (See quote from Mrs. Elizabeth Huffaker, a pioneer of 1847, p.7), The Great West in American History, Bulletin of the University of Utah, Volume 11, Issue 9, Department of Western History, University of Utah, https://books.google.com/books?id=4LfOAAAAMAAJ
American Bison Courtesy US FWS Ryan Moehring, PhotographerThe Henry Mountains of southeast Utah are famous for being the last mountain range in the contiguous United States to have been officially mapped. Indeed, before they were mapped, they were often referred to as the “Unknown Mountains.” Another relative unknown detail about this range is that it harbors one of only five genetically pure, free roaming bison herds on North American public lands.
In 1941, a seed herd of 18 American Plains Bison (B. b. bison) were transplanted from Yellowstone National Park to the arid desert of Utah’s Robbers Roost. A year later, five more bulls were introduced to the herd in hopes of sufficiently diversifying the gene pool and sustaining the herd. The bison must not have found Robbers Roost as appealing as Butch Cassidy had, though, because this new Wild Bunch set out for literal greener pastures that very same year.
The small herd forded the Dirty Devil River and travelled southwest toward the Burr Desert. The herd stopped here for a while, enjoying their newfound buffet atop the Aquarius Plateau. 21 years later, though, in 1963, the still small herd grew tired of the desert and abandoned it altogether for the higher, more verdant snow fed meadows of the nearby Henry Mountains. Here, the herd thrived and quickly swelled in numbers.
Today, the herd’s population is estimated to be between 300 and 400 animals, which ecologists and wildlife biologists regard as the maximum carrying capacity of their Henry Mountain range. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources has responded accordingly. In an effort to perpetuate the health of the herd and their range, the DWR began issuing “Once-in-a-lifetime” permits to hunters hoping to fulfill not only a tag but also a burning sense of adventure. The Henry Mountains, after all, were mapped last for a reason. They remain one of the most rugged and remote places in a state known for its rugged and remote places.
Fittingly, quite unlike their more quintessential Plains Bison brethren, the Henry Mountains bison can be found almost anywhere in the Henrys between the desert lowlands and timberline. Apparently no one has told the herd that Plains Bison don’t typically like high elevations or steep mountain slopes. This unique proclivity of the Henry Mountains herd to cast off behavioral stereotypes works in their favor when hunting season rolls around and they abandon the high, open meadows for steep, wooded canyons and thick groves of aspen and evergreens.
This highly adaptive nature unique to the Henry Mountains herd made it an obvious candidate to serve as a seed population in early 2010 when 39 individuals were transplanted from the Henry Mountains to the Book Cliffs along the Utah-Colorado border. These 39 animals were to serve as a genetic supplement to a relatively new herd first reintroduced to the Book Cliffs by the Ute Indian Tribe in 1986. The now 600-strong Book Cliffs herd is well on its way to reestablishing the American Plains Bison’s historic range in the Book Cliffs.
The story of the Book Cliffs and Henry Mountains Bison give us reason to hope that one day soon, the American Bison might reclaim its territory, a historic range that once ran from Alaska through the Canadian territories and the Great Plains to the Eastern Seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico. And, if so, the role the Henry Mountains herd will play in that expansion may be a significant one.
I’m Josh Boling, and I’m Wild About Utah.
The Henry Mountain Bison-Credits:
Photos: Courtesy US FWS, Ryan Moehring, Photographer
Audio: Includes audio from
Text: Josh Boling, 2019
American Bison Courtesy US FWS Ryan Moehring, PhotographerThe Henry Mountains of southeast Utah are famous for being the last mountain range in the contiguous United States to have been officially mapped. Indeed, before they were mapped, they were often referred to as the “Unknown Mountains.” Another relative unknown detail about this range is that it harbors one of only five genetically pure, free roaming bison herds on North American public lands.
In 1941, a seed herd of 18 American Plains Bison (B. b. bison) were transplanted from Yellowstone National Park to the arid desert of Utah’s Robbers Roost. A year later, five more bulls were introduced to the herd in hopes of sufficiently diversifying the gene pool and sustaining the herd. The bison must not have found Robbers Roost as appealing as Butch Cassidy had, though, because this new Wild Bunch set out for literal greener pastures that very same year.
The small herd forded the Dirty Devil River and travelled southwest toward the Burr Desert. The herd stopped here for a while, enjoying their newfound buffet atop the Aquarius Plateau. 21 years later, though, in 1963, the still small herd grew tired of the desert and abandoned it altogether for the higher, more verdant snow fed meadows of the nearby Henry Mountains. Here, the herd thrived and quickly swelled in numbers.
Today, the herd’s population is estimated to be between 300 and 400 animals, which ecologists and wildlife biologists regard as the maximum carrying capacity of their Henry Mountain range. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources has responded accordingly. In an effort to perpetuate the health of the herd and their range, the DWR began issuing “Once-in-a-lifetime” permits to hunters hoping to fulfill not only a tag but also a burning sense of adventure. The Henry Mountains, after all, were mapped last for a reason. They remain one of the most rugged and remote places in a state known for its rugged and remote places.
Fittingly, quite unlike their more quintessential Plains Bison brethren, the Henry Mountains bison can be found almost anywhere in the Henrys between the desert lowlands and timberline. Apparently no one has told the herd that Plains Bison don’t typically like high elevations or steep mountain slopes. This unique proclivity of the Henry Mountains herd to cast off behavioral stereotypes works in their favor when hunting season rolls around and they abandon the high, open meadows for steep, wooded canyons and thick groves of aspen and evergreens.
This highly adaptive nature unique to the Henry Mountains herd made it an obvious candidate to serve as a seed population in early 2010 when 39 individuals were transplanted from the Henry Mountains to the Book Cliffs along the Utah-Colorado border. These 39 animals were to serve as a genetic supplement to a relatively new herd first reintroduced to the Book Cliffs by the Ute Indian Tribe in 1986. The now 600-strong Book Cliffs herd is well on its way to reestablishing the American Plains Bison’s historic range in the Book Cliffs.
The story of the Book Cliffs and Henry Mountains Bison give us reason to hope that one day soon, the American Bison might reclaim its territory, a historic range that once ran from Alaska through the Canadian territories and the Great Plains to the Eastern Seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico. And, if so, the role the Henry Mountains herd will play in that expansion may be a significant one.
I’m Josh Boling, and I’m Wild About Utah.
Credits:
Photos: Courtesy US FWS, Ryan Moehring, Photographer
Audio: Includes audio from
Text: Josh Boling, 2019
