NATIVE FLORA & FAUNA
The Mt. Timpanogos region is blessed with a tremendous diversity of plants and wildlife. Every native plant, animal, and fungi species plays a key role in maintaining a healthy ecosystem.
Sundance Nature Alliance is committed to protecting and restoring the biodiversity of our ecosystem. A healthy ecosystem supports all life on our planet by regulating climate change, reducing the risk of wildfire, and providing clean air and water for all.
Trees
Aspen
Deciduous trees lose their leaves in the fall. Aspens have distinctive cream-colored bark and grow in large stands. A single colony is typically derived from a single seedling and spread by root suckers. Each aspen tree lives 40-150 years above ground but the root system is long lived and in some cases can be thousands of years old. Wikipedia
Rocky Mountain Maple
The Rocky Mountain Maple is also known as a Smooth Maple. Smaller and more scraggly in appearance than the aspens, and prefer areas with moist soil. Wikipedia
Douglas Fir
Douglas Fir has cones that point downward, and if you look closely at a cone, you will find it has a distinctive three-tipped bract that protrudes from between the seeds of the cone. Wikipedia
White Fir
Flowers
Indian Paintbrush
Castilleja, commonly known as paintbrush, Indian paintbrush, or prairie-fire, is a genus of about 200 species of annual and perennial herbaceous plants native to the west of the Americas from Alaska south to the Andes, northern Asia, and one species as far west as the Kola Peninsula in northwestern Russia. Wikipedia
Mountain Bluebell
Mertensia ciliata is a species of flowering plant in the borage family known by the common names tall fringed bluebells, mountain bluebells, and streamside bluebells. Wikipedia
Yarrow (Milfoil)
Wild Mint
Segolily
Calochortus nuttallii, also known as the sego lily, is a bulbous perennial plant that is endemic to the Western United States. It is the state flower of Utah. The Shoshone taught the Mormon pioneer immigrants to use the bulb for badly needed food. This resulted in the sego lily being formally designated as the Utah State Flower in 1911. Sego is derived from the Shoshone word seego. Wikipedia
Monskhood
Birds
Black-Capped Chickadee
The black-capped chickadee is one of the few year-round resident songbirds of the Wasatch mountains. In the winter, when it is not foraging, it can enter into a state of torpor, dropping its body temperature dramatically to conserve energy. The chickadee has a black cap and bib; gray back, wings, and tail; and whitish underside, and its most common call is chick-a-dee-dee-dee. Wikipedia
Steller’s Jay
Steller's jay (Cyanocitta stelleri) is a bird native to western North America and the mountains of Central America, closely related to the blue jay found in eastern North America. It is also known as the long-crested jay, mountain jay, and pine jay. It is the only crested jay west of the Rocky Mountains. The bird is named after the German naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller, the first European to record them, in 1741. Wikipedia
Wild Turkey
The wild turkey is an upland game bird native to North America, one of two extant species of turkey and the heaviest member of the order Galliformes. Turkey are known to occasionally forage with deer and squirrels, and may even play with them. By foraging together, each can help the other watch for predators with their different senses: the deer with their improved olfactory sense, the turkey with its superior sight, and squirrels providing an additional set of eyes from the air. Wikipedia
Red Tailed Hawk
The red-tailed hawk is a bird of prey that breeds throughout most of North America, from the interior of Alaska and northern Canada to as far south as Panama and the West Indies. It is one of the most common members within the genus of Buteo in North America or worldwide. Wikipedia
Goshawk
Raven
Common ravens have coexisted with humans for thousands of years. Part of their success as a species is due to their omnivorous diet; they are extremely versatile and opportunistic in finding sources of nutrition, feeding on carrion, insects, cereal grains, berries, fruit, small animals, nesting birds, and food waste. Some notable feats of problem-solving provide evidence that the common raven is unusually intelligent. Wikipedia
Black Chinned Hummingbird
The black-chinned hummingbird is 8.25 cm (3.25 in) long. Adults are metallic green above and white below with green flanks. Their bill is long, straight and very slender. These birds feed on nectar from flowers using a long extendable tongue or catch insects on the wing. While collecting nectar, they also assist in plant pollination. Wikipedia
Hairy Woodpecker
The hairy woodpecker is a medium-sized woodpecker that is found over a large area of North America. It is approximately 250 mm (9.8 in) in length with a 380 mm (15 in) wingspan. With an estimated population in 2020 of almost nine million individuals. These birds forage on trees, often turning over bark or excavating to uncover insects. Wikipedia
Animals
Snowshoe Hare
In the winter the snowshoe hare’s coat turns from brown to white, and their large furry feet help them stay warm and on top of the snow. During winter months they survive on a diet of Douglas-fir, willows, snowberry, maples, and serviceberry. Wikipedia
Squirrel
Chipmunk
Chipmunks have an omnivorous diet primarily consisting of seeds, nuts and other fruits, and buds. They also commonly eat grass, shoots, and many other forms of plant matter, as well as fungi, insects and other arthropods, small frogs, worms, and bird eggs. These small mammals fulfill several important functions in forest ecosystems. Their activities harvesting and hoarding tree seeds play a crucial role in seedling establishment. Wikipedia
American Beaver
The North American beaver is the largest rodent in North America. The first fossil records of beaver are 10 to 12 million years old in Germany, and they are thought to have migrated to North America across the Bering Strait. The oldest fossil record of beavers in North America are of two beaver teeth near Dayville, Oregon, and are 7 million years old. Wikipedia
Bobcat
The bobcat, also known as the red lynx, is a medium-sized cat native to North America. It ranges from southern Canada through most of the contiguous United States to Oaxaca in Mexico. It is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List since 2002, due to its wide distribution and large population. Wikipedia
Mountain Lion
The cougar, also known as the puma, mountain lion, catamount and panther, is a large cat native to the Americas. Its range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America. It is the most widely distributed large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere. The cougar is largely solitary by nature and considered both nocturnal and crepuscular, although daytime sightings do occur. Wikipedia
Mule Deer
Moose
The moose (in North America) or elk (in Eurasia) (Alces alces) is a member of the New World deer subfamily and is the only species in the genus Alces. It is the largest and heaviest extant species in the deer family. Most adult male moose have distinctive broad, palmate (“open-hand shaped”) antlers; most other members of the deer family have antlers with a dendritic (“twig-like”) configuration. Wikipedia
Elk
Elk range in forest and forest-edge habitat, feeding on grasses, plants, leaves, and bark. Male elk have large antlers which they shed each year. Males also engage in ritualized mating behaviors during the rut, including posturing, antler wrestling (sparring), and bugling, a loud series of vocalizations that establishes dominance over other males and attracts females. Wikipedia