Bad news about Sax Zim Bog

For any photographers who have visited or are interested in visiting Sax Zim Bog in MN for boreal species, here's some news. Mike Hendrickson sent an email to the MOU list. He's the organizer of the winter bird festival there (which was this past weekend.)

The news is that the DNR has cracked down on the feeders and removed the deer carcasses that various people had placed around the Bog. Certain locals claim that they are attracting wolves and other undesirable wildlife. My personal opinion is that some of the locals really don't like the influx of birders and photograhers, rather than wolves. It seems to me that if there were really so many wolves all over the place, people would be seeing them instead of birds.

These feeders are the stations that were located on Admiral Rd, Arkola Rd, and McDavitt Rd. They were basically just ad-hoc feeders stations that had been set up along public roads. Various local people would keep them stocked with seed and frozen deer carcasses. Probably the greatest loss from these feeders is being able to easily find boreal chickadees. The McDavitt Rd feeder in particular was really well suited for photography. People came from all over the country to visit this feeder and see boreal chickadees, gray jays, etc. It's a real shame that it has been taken down. I guess these feeders were victims to their own success.

Note that there are still private landowners who make their feeders available to the public (mostly good for finches and grosbeaks.) Also there are still plenty of owls and woodpeckers around. So the Bog is still worth a visit, even if you're much less likely to see and get close to a boreal chickadee.

Here are a few shots I've taken at the McDavitt Rd feeder:

Boreal chickadee:

Well I'm happy to report some good news. Apparently the DNR will still allow seed and suet feeders, so it sounds like people will put the feeders back up in those locations. They just don't want any deer carcasses left out. Odd to me, because there are plenty of road killed deer around, but suet should work just as well for attracting the same species. Yay boreal chickadee!

Yes I read that also, Excellent shot of the Boreal Chickadee, and also love the Martin or Weasel shot, cant remember what my buddy called it.

I was really bummed when I first heard about it, because the McDavitt Rd. feeder is a great place to get photos. I'm glad the DNR seems to be reasonable and allow suet if not deer carcasses.

Liz, as you know, the birds could care less about the feeders, all they care about is the seeds. You can put them on logs, on the ground or stand there and hold them and the birds will still show up to eat them.

Mitch is the original "bird feeder"
He just fills his hands and pockets and stands with arms out stretched..
Even sprinkles some seeds on the brim of his hat!



Beautiful shots Liz..
Loving the Pine Marten

canonloader wrote in post #9629033
Liz, as you know, the birds could care less about the feeders, all they care about is the seeds.

You would be surprised to see how many birds feed on a deer carcass, Chickadees, Nuthatches ,Downey WP ,Hairy WP, Gray Jays,Siskins,and that just what I saw when I was up at the Bog, I was quite surprised as well.

I am sure some of you have seen this link, about the dangers of deer feeding on gut piles and gunshot deer. Liz might have missed it though. It's very sad to see and there is an easy fix for it, but it needs educated hunters to make it work.

But yes, I have seen all kinds of birds, especially woodpeckers, eating on dumped hides and skeletons up by our airport. It's good food for them. Someone at our park feeder is also bringing deer suet in huge slabs and leaving it on the logs around the area and there is always a small cloud of feathered friends working on that.

Trust me, I'm very familiar with the issue of lead poisoning. I volunteer for the Raptor Center and have transported birds with a variety of injuries, including lead poisoned eagles.

The deer carcasses set out in the Bog are from road kill deer. Of course, road kill has its own problems, being along the side of the road (usually a highway) which is a very dangerous place for any raptor that needs a lot of space to take flight (especially after gorging on road kill!) So a lot of eagles and other raptors are hit by cars because of that (meaning more trips to the Raptor Center.) The small carcasses set out at the Bog don't have that problem because they are along back roads, and eagles aren't coming to those feeders anyway.

It's true that many of the birds will come to seed feeders, or just seed on the ground, but the people who were maintaining the carcasses had also taken down all of the feeders along the public roads in response to the DNR crackdown. Also, boreal chickadees aren't really like regular black-capped chickadees. They are much more rare and skittish, and I have never seen one come to a seed feeder, only suet or the frozen deer carcass. Plus you're more likely to see the gray jays, red-breasted nuthatches, etc with the carcass.

Anyway, it sounds like the feeders are back up and people are seeing the boreal chickadees again, which is great news!