Naturalizing around Salt Lake on June 23rd?

Hi Scott, welcome to Utah. I moved here from Australia about 5 years ago. I have done a lot of traveling around Utah, its an amazing state with lots of diversity and scenery. If you like birding I suggest Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge north of Salt Lake. It has a ton of birds there. Also Antelope Island is good for birds, you should also see Bison and Antelope. For butterflies the Wasatch mountains is excellent, the mountain range east of Salt Lake. For wildflowers the high areas of the Wasatch is amazing, go up Little Cottonwood Canyon or Big Cottonwood Canyon, at that time of year you should start seeing the alpine flowers. I should be mostly free that weekend, happy to catch up for a group hike.
Rolf

Scott, thanks for including us in your 1st Utah visit - exciting! Rolf and Rebecca have some good suggestions - seeing (and smelling) the Salt Lake is certainly worth doing, and I would say Antelope Island and the Causeway leading to would be the best choice for birding, with an emphasis on migrating shore birds...not much in the way of plant diversity, though. The Alta ski area in Little Cottonwood Canyon is great to use as an exploration base, and you'll see more specialized high-altitude species of birds (especially hummingbirds), plants, and mammals (marmots, pika), with great hikes to mountain lakes through the wildflowers - July is usually peak for them, but because of the warmer season I think we're anticipating an earlier bloom time this year. If there's anything in particular you want to try and see just let us know...we can definitely point you in the right direction or connect you with a knowledge expert.

I'm doing a bird survey that morning, but should wrap up around 9:30 - so would definitely be up for meeting somewhere and can help out with transportation if needed. Several of us on here are citizen science volunteers with the Natural History Museum of Utah and exclusively use iNat for local bioblitz events and a few specialized projects. Coordinating something there could also be an option, if you want a chance to see any of the collections and hike/observe the surrounding area. @tigerbb, @lcthompson, @chad_w, @lkaili, @allycoconis

Welcome to Utah, Scott! I agree with all of the recommendations above. It will most likely be hot (high 90*s to over 100*), so I would suggest hitting the Great Salt Lake and Antelope Island in the morning then heading to the Wasatch Mountains in the afternoon and evening. We went to Albion Basin in Little Cottonwood Canyon around the same time last year and it was lush with flowers. We also saw lots of birds, moose, mule deer and many smaller mammals as well. There is a very popular hike in that basin (Cecret Lake) that is overcrowded with people, but 90% of the people just travel the main trail and spend time at the lake. If you branch off on any of the side trails or continue past the lake it is much less crowded and easier to encounter the various animals. I'll be in town that weekend, but may be busy getting ready for a youth camp the following week, so I'll have to commit later on availability.

Thanks for all the responses folks! The Antelope Island / Wasatch Mountains combo seems pretty awesome... Would be awesome to have a little meetup/hike!

Thanks @hannawacker

Hi Scott, what species are you looking for? Two of our more popular locations in Utah are Lambs Canyon and Farmington Canyon in late June; depending upon which species are of priority. I've broken down the state into physio-geographic regions with respective checklists on this web page. Just scroll down to the bottom and click on the region. http://utahbugclub.org/finding-utah-butterflies.php. Feel free to email me at todd@raisingbutterflies.org for specifics.

Hi Lexi, Todd, and Jay - apologies for the delayed response. Saturday is fast approaching - so I definitely want to get on this now!

I'm also free all day Saturday. While an Antelope Island (AM) / Cecret Lake Wasatch Mountains (PM) combo sounds awesome, Google maps says they're separated by a 3 hour drive. Does that seem reasonable for people?

If not, is there a closer place in the Wasatch Mountains we could pick for the PM spot?

We could also set a Antelope Island time/place to meet up in the AM and go from there.... What do you suggest?

Also for this https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/2017-inat-athon-southeast-arizona we used GroupMe app to coordinate logistics (I've also used WhatsApp for the same kind of thing) - both use phone numbers. Should I set something like that up to coordinate? Preference between GroupMe or WhatsApp?

Hi folks,

The conference is wrapping up here and I'm excited to get outside tomorrow and do some naturalizing.


@cullen, @gvanhorn and I spent some time discussing and we need to pull the trigger between Big Cotton Wood Canyon (Brighton Lakes trail), Little Cotton Wood Canyon (Snow Bird), and Farmington Canyon http://www.utahlepsociety.org/francispeak.html. We'll probably meet around 10am.

If anyone has any ideas on which of these we should do, please chime in. Otherwise we'll probably randomly pick one over dinner and I'll ping people where/when we'll be in case anyone wants to meet.

Thanks!

Scott

Thanks Scott. Tony and I will take Powder Alley Trail near Dog Lake and Lake Mary around 12:00 Noon on Saturday. This is up at Brighton Ski area up Big Cottonwood Canyon. That will be our second stop after Jordanelle to search for Lycaena rubidus late instar larvae. We are doing some studies on Plebejus idas annetta and will looking for post-diapause caterpillars on Lupinus argenteus. We will be at 40°35'17.35"N 111°34'59.53"W if you want to hook up. There should be many other butterflies on wing.