I try to foster this appreciation for art through a routine and rigorous integrated series of bird sketches and colored pencil drawings with my second-grade students at Edith Bowen Laboratory School. Students study a unique bird species each week, and as a culminating artifact, create a Bird Guide Card. On this card they record the bird sound, size, habitat and an interesting fact. Additionally, they carefully sketch, color, and label notable identifying characteristics of the bird. This artistic portion of the week’s lesson has so many powerful learning benefits that I’ve seen develop in the kids.

First and foremost, students’ attention to detail is greatly enhanced. In the beginning of the year, students’ birds have an oval body, wings outstretched like an airplane’s, two stick legs dangling down like two grandfather clock pendulums, and a pointy triangle beak. However, as their perception of detail increases over the year, they begin to notice the subtle details that in fact, provide insight to the scientific principles of life; such as the change in angle after the hinge-like joints midway through a bird’s wing, the different textures of flight-feathers vs. down-feathers, or the various structures and shapes of beaks based on what diet is of primary concern.

Second, students’ patience and attentiveness in increased, which I think we can all agree are much needed traits in this world. Students who were so eager to outline a bird sketch and then scribble it with color at the beginning of the year, now are seen fastidiously sketching and erasing, thoughtfully blending various colors, and even seeking counsel from other classmates on whether this or that tweak would improve their artistic masterpiece.

Finally, I have seen my students develop an appreciation for diversity in peer artwork. Let’s face it, some people have a natural artistic proclivity, and some have to work a bit harder. However, my students no longer giggle or make snide comments about bad art. Instead, I hear kids say things like “Wow, Jim! That’s your best bird yet! I love the way you did the feet!” or “You got the colors just right on the tail feathers, Emily!” Instead of seeing students as bad artists, they respect their contribution and acknowledge beauty in various forms.

So I challenge you. Grab a pencil, paper, eraser, and colored pencils. Find a picture on the internet of a bird you’ve seen in the last week, and then zoom in! Start with a pencil sketch. Look for detail, notice, wonder. Try to capture those observations in your sketch. Then, move to colored pencils and attempt to shade, color, and blend until you’ve represented what you want. I hope you find, like I have, that whatever turns out, whether you realize you’re the next John James Audubon or your bird looks more like something that came straight out of Sesame Street, you will have entered a special thinking place where your focus on nature’s beauty enhances your ability to perceive quality.

I am 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:

Edith Bowen Lab School, Utah State University, https://edithbowen.usu.edu/

The post Nature and Art appeared first on Wild About Utah.

It’s almost my favorite time of the year, when I get to watch these moms emerge and start their nests. Some solitary bees, like the ones I study, make their nests in holes in wood. Usually this means nesting in a wooden tunnel drilled out by a beetle, but it also means that they will nest in manmade nesting boxes. These nesting structures consist of a wooden block with long dead-end drilled holes where each hole belongs to a different mom, like rows of single story condos.

If I stand patiently next to a nesting box, I’m rewarded with the sight of a mama bee backing out of one of the nesting holes. She rests for a moment at the entrance to her nest, basking in some sun. She rubs her back legs together and wiggles her abdomen a bit. Then, she takes flight. I watch her buzz away to a leaf where she lands and rapidly chews on the leaf edge. Her motions are quick and urgent. Then she buzzes back to her nesting hole. She hovers for a moment, and pokes at the neighboring hole before landing back at her own and depositing the small bit of chewed leaf. She begins drywalling her new nursery, several trips of collecting, chewing up and puttying this bright green leaf pulp will result in a wall that protects her babies. Those babies develop throughout the rest of summer and fall and go into hibernation for the winter. When temperatures warm up, these new bees will chew through that leafy wall to enter the world.

My name is Anna Goates. I am a student at Utah State University and I study bees at the USDA-ARS Pollinating Insects Research Unit. I’m studying the nesting of one species of bee, Osmia bruneri, a bee that’s native here in Utah and throughout the Great Basin area. Like many other bees, bruneri need more than flowers. Bruneri bees use leaf pieces to build their nests. A mama bee will bring lots of pollen to her nest using fuzzy hairs on her belly. Then she lays an egg on top of the pollen and builds a wall out of leaf pulp. Female bruneri are a shiny metallic blue, and male bees are a metallic lime green with a fuzzy white mustache on their faces. If you don’t look closely, you might think they are flies.

As spring approaches, bees and other insects will start coming out from their winter hideaways. I’m excited to see my little bee friends again.

I’m Anna Goates, a volunteer for Stokes Nature Center, and I’m wild about Utah.

Credits:

Images: Capped Nesting Straws & Leaf-harvesting Osmia Female, Courtesy and Copyright Anna Goates, Photographer
Male & Female Osmia bruneri, Courtesy and Copyright Michael Branstetter, Photographer
Bee at tube entrance, Courtesy & Copyright Lindsie McCabe, Photographer
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright Anderson, Howe, and Wakeman..
English Text & Voice: Anna Goates, Stokes Nature Center Volunteer, https://logannature.org/volunteer
Spanish Text & Voice: Carlos Ramos, Stokes Nature Center, https://logannature.org/staff
Additional Reading Links: Lyle Bingham, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading:

Wild About Utah Pieces by Anna Goates, https://wildaboututah.org/author/anna-goates/

Bruner’s Mason Bee — Osmia bruneri. Montana Field Guide. Montana Natural Heritage Program. Retrieved on April 5, 2026, from https://FieldGuide.mt.gov/speciesDetail.aspx?elcode=IIHYMA2610

The post Leafy Bee Nests appeared first on Wild About Utah.

Las abejas sí necesitan flores, y algunas viven en colmenas, pero muchas también requieren otros materiales para construir sus nidos.

Algunas de mis favoritas hacen sus nidos con barro, pequeñas piedras, trozos de hojas, savia de árboles, pétalos de flores o incluso los pelitos que crecen en las plantas.

Estas abejas suelen ser solitarias y dependen de una sola mamá fuerte para cuidar todo el nido.

Ya casi llega mi época favorita del año, cuando puedo ver a estas mamás salir y comenzar sus nidos. Algunas abejas solitarias, como las que estudio, hacen sus nidos en agujeros de madera.

Normalmente esto significa anidar en túneles hechos por escarabajos, pero también pueden hacerlo en cajas nido hechas por personas.

Estas estructuras consisten en un bloque de madera con agujeros largos y sin salida, donde cada agujero pertenece a una mamá diferente, como una fila de pequeños departamentos.

Si me quedo pacientemente junto a una caja nido, puedo ver a una mamá abeja salir de uno de los agujeros. Ella descansa un momento en la entrada de su nido, disfrutando el sol, se frota las patas traseras y mueve su abdomen.

Entonces, alza el vuelo.

La observo ir hasta una hoja, donde aterriza y rápidamente muerde el borde.

Sus movimientos son rápidos y decididos.

Luego regresa zumbando a su agujero.

Flota un momento, revisa el agujero de al lado y finalmente aterriza en el suyo para dejar el trozo de hoja masticada.

Así empieza a construir la pared de su nueva guardería;

varios viajes de recoger, masticar y pegar.

Esta pulpa verde formará una pared que protegerá a sus crías.

Esos bebés se desarrollarán durante el resto del verano y el otoño, y luego hibernarán en invierno.

Cuando suben las temperaturas, las nuevas abejas morderán esa pared de hojas para salir al mundo.

Este artículo es escrito por Anna Goates. Estudiante de la Universidad Estatal de Utah y estudia abejas en la Unidad de Investigación de Insectos Polinizadores del USDA-ARS. Ella está investigando el anidamiento de una especie de abeja, Osmia bruneri, una abeja nativa de Utah y de la región de la Gran Cuenca.

Como muchas otras abejas, bruneri necesitan más que flores.

Las abejas bruneri usan trozos de hoja para construir sus nidos.

Una mamá abeja lleva mucho polen a su nido, deposita un huevo encima y luego construye una pared de pulpa de hoja para proteger a su cría.

Las hembras bruneri son de un azul metálico brillante, y los machos son de un verde lima metálico con un bigote blanco y peludo en la cara.

Si no miras bien, podrías pensar que son moscas.

A medida que se acerca la primavera, las abejas y otros insectos empiezan a salir de sus escondites de invierno.

Me emociona volver a ver a mis pequeñas amigas abejas.

Es admirable el esfuerzo que haces para sobrevivir una temporada más, siendo fuerte para ver que tus pequeños crezcan mejor que tú.

¿No crees que las abejas Bruneri son un ejemplo de esfuerzo y valor?

Soy Carlos Ramos y estoy loco por Utah.

Créditos:

Imágenes: Tubos nido llenos y cubiertos con hojas y Hembra de Osmia bruneri recolectando material de hojas, Cortesía y © Anna Goates, fotógrafa
Osmia bruneri macho y hembra, Cortesía y © Michael Branstetter, fotógrafo
Abeja albañil en la entrada de un tubo nido, Cortesía y © Lindsie McCabe, fotógrafa
Audio destacado: Cortesía y derechos de autor Anderson, Howe y Wakeman
Texto y voz en inglés: Anna Goates, Stokes Nature Center Volunteer, https://logannature.org/volunteer
Texto: Anna Goates y Carlos Ramos, Stokes Nature Center, https://logannature.org/staff
Lectura adicional: Lyle Bingham, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Lectura adicional

Artículos de Wild About Utah por Anna Goates, https://wildaboututah.org/author/anna-goates/

Artículos de Wild About Utah por Carlos Ramos, https://wildaboututah.org/author/carlos-ramos/

Bruner’s Mason Bee — Osmia bruneri. Montana Field Guide. Montana Natural Heritage Program. Retrieved on April 5, 2026, from https://FieldGuide.mt.gov/speciesDetail.aspx?elcode=IIHYMA2610

The post Nidos de abejas y hojas appeared first on Wild About Utah.

“Sort of.” she said. She explained how today’s chariot racing in the Intermountain West involves two horses pulling a small aluminum chariot with the driver standing in the cart.

She mentioned the Regional Championships were coming up at the Golden Spike Arena in Ogden that weekend. So on Saturday, I jumped in my car . I got to the Arena just after the first race.

As I was strolling up to the rail running along the side of the racetrack, the horses in the next race shot by me. I was a little stunned by the hammering of the hooves on the dry dirt, the jangling of the harnesses, the strange whirring of the bicycle wheels — let alone the screaming of the spectators.

For the horses, it was an all out sprint for a quarter mile and it was over in 21 seconds.

In Roman times, the races lasted much longer. A typical race went 7 laps on a U-shaped racetrack with dangerously tight turns on both ends. Wealthy Roman Citizens owned the horses, but they usually sent a slave to drive the team. A crowd favorite was the daredevil slave charioteer Scorpius, who won 2,048 races before he died in a crash at the age of 26. Stories of chariot racing go all the way back to Homer’s Iliad where the Spartan king Menelaus was accused of cheating in a chariot race.

Rome’s racetrack was called the Circus Maximus and it could seat 250,000 spectators.

Back in Pioneer times in Utah, farmers liked to brag about how fast their horses could go, so challenges were made, and the issue usually settled by an informal race. The first official chariot race took place down the main street in Jackson Wyoming in 1950. For the following decades, chariot racing was very popular. Hundreds of teams would show up at the local races.

Going back to the Golden Spike racetrack, I walked up to where the races were starting. I asked if I could get close and climb up on the sidebars of the starting gate and they said ,”Sure.” From there I got an eyeball-to-eyeball view of the horses impatiently banging around in the starting chutes.

I think I was expecting a “Ready, Set, Go” and a starter pistol fired into the air. What I got was a mighty clang of metal on metal when the starter pulled a lever. The gates slammed open, the horses lunged forward, and dirt flew by me.

When the dust finally settled, the days winners were a team from Logan, who clocked in at 20.40 seconds – just 3 hundredths of a second off the world record.

On the way out I stopped to talk to three old timers still standing around chewing the fat.

“The sport is dying out,” one said.

“It’s getting expensive to keep a horse,” said the second.

The third summed it all up for me:
“Used to be you were really someone if you had a car. Now you’re really someone if you have a horse.”

This is Mary Heers and I’m Wild about all the horses in Utah.

Credits:

Photos: Courtesy and Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer
Chariot Racing Team, Courtesy and Copyright Wendy Wilker, Photographer
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright © Anderson, Howe, and Wakeman Utah Public Radio upr.org
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’ Wild About Utah Postings

https://www.facebook.com/reel/917556147927681 Courtesy Wendy Wilker

American Chariot Racing, https://www.goldenspikeeventcenter.com/event-details/acr-chariot-races-7

World Chariots, https://www.goldenspikeeventcenter.com/event-details/world-chariots-8

The post A Day at the Chariot Races appeared first on Wild About Utah.