Wild About Utah

This episode of Wild About Utah originally aired in March 2019. Inverted woodpecker, a phrase I use to describe the feeding habits of the amazing nut hatch family. I first became aware of this lovely little songbird growing up in Michigan, where the white-breasted nut hatch was common fare in the north woods. Their little laughing notes were most welcome as I sat on my deer stand where I would watch them search bark crevices for yummy morsels of grubs, insect eggs or seeds they had wedged in for

I’ve fancied a certain type of wandering lately—to grab my pack and boots and walk the lines of Utah’s political border —a trail made not of dirt and stone, but of imaginary lines of latitude and longitude . But, as of yet, I haven’t found the time o r resources to do so beyond my own imagination and the 3 or 4 minutes I have with you now. Come j oin me in a stroll around Utah, at least the way I’ve imagined it.

Eating the “humble crow”! Not literally- I hear they are rather tough and stringy. In my last reading titled “Wren Love”, I was confused by a flock of birds acting much like canyon wrens, but exhibiting a most unusual communal behavior. A later visit to the same ice covered cliff, only this time with optics, revealed them to be the gray crown rosy finch. I apologize for my carelessness! As recompense, I must give this beautiful finch its due and to repay you, dear listener!

Logan River’s geomorphology, or landform, has changed very little over the past 150 years in the mountain canyons. But where the river leaves the mountains and drops down onto Cache Valley’s floor, its geomorphology has changed dramatically.

There are some days that I just don’t have it in me to get outside. Maybe it’s the winter blues; maybe it’s exhaustion from a full day’s work. Either way, there are days where all I want to do is sit in the shelter of my home next to the heat ducts, or under the shade of a porch, and just exhale for hours. Sometimes, getting into the thick or exploring one of the many unmapped nooks of Utah’s majesty just isn’t happening.

“No, no, no! Don’t try to help me up yet , ” I instructed , choking bac k laughter through a face full of snow. Third graders teetered in their snowshoes on the edge of the tree as well with mixed emotions written on their faces—equal parts concern and confusion. I was sunk to my armpits in snow, insisting that they not help me out of it. The learning had begun.

With Valentine ’s Day imminent , I must profess my love for wre ns. A recent snowshoe slog with friends in a nearby canyon brought us face to face with a glorious panel of 30-foot ice colonnades running down quartzite cliffs . We stood in awe of their crystalline beauty. Near the ice wall, s mall birds were flitting in and out of vertic al crevices. I began counting- a dozen or more .

I am sitting next to friends on top of the skeleton of an excavator from the 1950s at an abandoned uranium mining site. All around us are tamarisk chokes, red rock fortifications, and the bleached steel bones of Pittsburgh’s former glory. We descend off of what we imagine the remains of a great steel Minotaur which used to rule this dead tributary, and head up the wash into a side canyon. Following old trails and roads, we find stone sculptures pitted and bored by wind, scorpions avoiding our

Every morning, me and my dog Sable go on a hike. It’s not a trek, but just an early morning walk up our favorite hidden canyon which lies in plain sight. We set off from our house right about 8 o’clock and drive up the hillsides to the canyon mouth. We weave out of our little town and into the next, winding up and up, past the houses that weren’t here 15 years ago, then 10 years ago, then 5. We rise higher than any business, home, or other building as we approach our morning trailhead. It’s good

This a rebroadcast of a program from Nov. 30, 2018 The 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.

A mighty tree has fallen- but its seed has been cast far and wide through his great works. I speak of a frequent WAU contributor, educator, and conservationist. On January 3 rd , 2020, Ron Hellstern left us for the g reat beyond. He was the personification of WAU.

Imagine a place devoid of randomly constant dings and dongs , a place with no artificial lighting or insistent clicking of keys or ticking of screens. Maybe even a place where one no longer has to think about the persistently pressing matters of politics for even just a brief moment.

My mother’s father died of cancer three months before I was born. From his memory, I carry his first name as my middle: Orville. For most of my life, this was all I had of his. Others had stories of him, photos, old reels of film. Through these means, I began over the years to better understand, perhaps not my grandfather as he was, but certainly as he was remembered. I began to see the meaning of my name but only within the memory of others.

This a rebroadcast of a program from Nov. 30, 2018. 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.

In the frigid dark of long winter nights, we tell stories—stories of thievery , heroism, and light. Raven, Maui, and Koo-lo ó -pe, the hummingbird . They are all said to have taken back the sun from t oo much darkness for their people, and their deeds remain the whispered subjects around campfires that lead up to the w inter s olstice. I’d like to tell a story of my own about our calendar’s longest, darkest night and our relationship with it.