City Nature Challenge

Chelsea WelchAlliance Messages, Animals, Plants

The Eagle Mountain Nature and Wildlife Alliance is teaming up with the Natural History Museum of Utah, Eagle Mountain City, and several other organizations across the Wasatch to participate in The City Nature Challenge.

Any observation made using iNaturalist in Box Elder, Cache, Davis, Salt Lake, Summit, Utah, Wasatch, or Weber Counties will count towards the total in Utah’s Wasatch portion of the collaborative competition, but we really want you to help us showcase the diversity and quantity of wild organisms living in our great city!

The Alliance is also hosting a bioblitz Saturday, April 29 beginning near the Eagle Mountain Public Works building. The city’s Wildlife Biologist, Todd Black will lead the blitz from 7:30-9:30 that morning to help document the biodiversity throughout the city. Even if you can’t join us Saturday for the bioblitz, the challenge will be open for all submissions April 28-May 1. Any observations made during that timeframe will automatically become part of the City Nature Challenge.

Sponsors and Prizes

In addition to the contribution you will make to science, these local businesses have donated prizes for the “best of” submissions. “Best of” awards will be determined by the Board of Directors of the Eagle Mountain Nature and Wildlife Alliance. (The board and their immediate family members are ineligible for winning any of the prizes.)

An assortment of soaps

Gift basket

$5 gift certificate

20% off any 3D image and statue

Free 50-minute Float

Gift Basket

More Information

  • iNaturalist.org. Sign up for an account and then check out the great Help section for more information on how to use the app or website.
  • Utah’s Wasatch. The portion of the City Nature Challenge that we are part of.
  • Eagle Mountain bioblitz. Hosted by the Alliance and led by Wildlife Biologist, Todd Black.
  • Natural History Museum of Utah. See what other events are happening as part of Utah’s Wasatch project. The Museum is also offering prizes in addition to the ones specific to Eagle Mountain.
  • City Nature Challenge. The official website, see stats for the current and past years and learn the history of this world-wide community event. They also have great resources for learning how to capture scientifically useful observations.

Great Basin Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata)

Chelsea WelchNative plants
Sagebrush plant
Sagebrush leaves showing the 3 lobes on each leaf

Identification

Sagebrush is a very common plant in the fields, ridges, and wildlife corridor in Eagle Mountain. It can typically grow more than a meter (3 feet) tall, sometimes even more than 2 meters (6 feet). It is very aromatic and although it may not look like it, is in the same family as sunflowers and dandelions.

Each leaf is pale green to silvery gray and has three lobes which is where the genus name tridentata comes from. The trunk is relatively thick and usually crooked. The bark is grey.

Sagebrush has two root systems – a deep tap root that can go up to 4 meters (13 feet) into the ground to absorb moisture deep in the desert soil, and shallow roots that spread wide near the surface allowing it to absorb moisture quickly after a rain storm.

Shelter and Foragers

Sagebrush provides an important hiding place for jackrabbits, cotton tail rabbits, lizards and other small animals protecting them from predators such as the golden eagle.

It also provides a food source for pronghorn, mule deer and some other foragers, although the oils that give it the strong aroma also taste bitter deterring some foragers from eating it.

Indigenous Use

Anthropologists have discovered that many indigenous tribes used sage brush for medicinal purposes. They chewed it to relieve toothache, boiled a tea to ease stomach pains, and wrapped swollen or arthritic joints with a wet bundle to sooth joint pain. It was also steamed or burned like incense in some rituals or simply to purify the air.

Golden Eagle

Chelsea WelchNative Birds
selective focus photograph of a golden eagle
Photo by Francesco Altamura on Pexels.com

The golden eagle is the most common eagle in Eagle Mountain. There is only one other species of eagle native to the United States: the bald eagle.

Golden eagles are large birds of prey with a wingspan of 6-7.5 feet. Like most birds of prey, the females are larger than the males, but other than size, the sex cannot be distinguished in the field. They are dark brown with lighter, golden-brown feathers on the back of their head or nape, which is where they get their name from.

Their preferred prey of choice around Eagle Mountain is jackrabbit, and they will happily eat other mammals such as rabbits, ground squirrels and the like.

They typically build nests on cliffsides and the females lay up to 4 eggs per year. Golden eagles are usually monogamous and pairs may remain together for several years or even for life.