Tax time, soon to arrive, is the time to remember Minnesota’s Chickadee Check-off. This is a line on your state tax form that gives you the opportunity to designate a portion of your tax refund for use by the DNR’s non-game wildlife department. Non-game efforts are important to song birds. If you have no refund you can make a contribution by adding that amount to the tax you owe. Tax returns filed for 2007 produced $1.1 million for the department, almost half the department’s annual budget. Average contribution was about $16. Check-off contributions made this coming tax season are likely to be even more important than in the past, given the budget deficit state government faces. This is a very simple way to help keep song birds on our landscape. If someone else prepares your taxes, be sure to tell them you want to use the Chickadee Check-off.

 If you like winter birds, northern Minnesota specialties in particular, there is a festival coming that can’t be beat. The second annual Sax-Zim Bog Winter Bird Festival will be held Feb. 13-15 in Meadowlands, northwest of Duluth. Birds to be seen include Sharp-tailed Grouse, Ruffed Grouse, Snowy Owl, Great Gray Owl, Northern Hawk-Owl, Northern Goshawk, Rough-legged Hawk, American Three-toed Woodpecker, Black-backed Woodpecker, Northern Shrike, Gray Jay, Black-billed Magpie, Boreal Chickadee, Bohemian Waxwing, Snow Bunting, Pine and Evening grosbeaks, Red and White-winged crossbills, and Hoary and Common redpolls. There are guided tours and programs. Check it out at http://moumn.org/sax-zim/. This might be the only true winter birding festival in the nation. Last year, birders from 21 states attended. (The bird in the photo is a Black-backed Woodpecker.)  Â

  The Rio Grande Valley in south Texas, along our border with Mexico, has long been a favorite destination for birders. It is a place where you can see bird species found nowhere else in the country. If you want to visit this special place, don’t delay. Go before our government finished The Wall. The Wall is that 16-foot-high concrete and steel barrier being built on our side of the Rio Grande River as part of our solution to illegal immigration.These comments are not about protecting our borders. I have no argument with that. What I don’t understand is why we can’t find a way to do that without demanding such huge environmental sacrafice. The Wall, according to an article in the American Birding Association’s newsletter, simply will remove some species from the United States. The Wall is being built within a 100-foot clearcut through habitat that sometimes is hardly 100 feet deep, squeezed between the river and the ag fields that dominate the Valley. Audubon’s Sabal Palm Bird Sanctuary actually will wind up on the Mexican side of the wall, access all but impossible. This sanctuary and several others sit in this special and rare wildlife corridor that our government has spent $100 million purchasing and restoring. Why is it that we so often seek to solve national problems by giving the environment a good shot in the shorts? Is this really the best we can do? (The White-winged Dove in the photo is found along the Rio Grande River.)Â

 Federal duck-stamp competition and surrounding events begin Saturday with display of the 2008 stamp art contest entries at the Bloomington Art Center. There are many events scheduled through Oct. 18, the day the 2009 stamp winner will be announced. You’ll be hard pressed to find a better opportunity to view wildlife art, take tours and wildlife walks, learn about wildlife photography, learn to identify birds, meet some of the nation’s most talented wildlife artists, and participate in the excitement of the contest itself, including announcement of the winner. For a complete schedule, go to web site www.fws.gov/duckstamps/contest_events.htm

   Crex Meadows wildlife area will hold a festival this Sunday, Oct. 5, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Events will begin at the Crex Visitors’ Center just north of Grantsburg, Wisconsin. Crex is a wildlife area of more than 30,000 acres. The festival coincides with the peak gathering there of migrating Sandhill Cranes. Thousands of cranes will be seen, along with many other species of birds. There are guided tours at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. To get to Grantsburg, take I-35W north to Minnesota Highway 70 and follow it east for 15 miles to Grantsburg, which is just across the St. Croix River. In Grantsburg, follow the yellow goose footprints through town to the visitors’ center. The photo is of Sandhill Cranes at Crex.

These are hypothetical questions. There is no study. But what if there was a study stating that installation of wind-powered electrical generators along the ridge above Duluth would pose only minor problems for birds. Hawk Ridge is up there, one of North America’s best places to watch raptors during fall migration. Birders are up there right now, with tens of thousands of migrants flying above the ridge possible on a good day. Only minor problems for birds: is there an acceptable size for such problems? (The bird in the photo is a Merlin, a common Hawk Ridge migrant.)

  A contest for digital photos of prairie wildlife and landscape has been announced for all photographers age 18 or up. It is being sponsored by The Nature Conservancy as part of the celebration surrounding the 2009 federal Duck Stamp artwork competition, which is to be held in Bloomington in October. Photos need be taken in Minnesota or one of the Dakotas. Deadline for entries is midnight Sept. 15. Cash prizes will be awarded, $250 to first place. For complete entry information, go to http://www.flickr.com/groups/thenatureconservancyminnesota_prairie/  Â

Here is an excellent birding magazine Internet site to check out. “Living Bird,” published by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, has won the Edustyle “People’s Choice” award for best magazine site in 2008. The spring issue can be found at www.livingbird.org. The magazine has for a long time offered the best bird photography of any birding publication. It’s definitely worth a look.

“History has shown that if you want to save something on this planet, make it a huntable or fishable species, and allow a constituency to form around it.” Dennis Anderson, outdoor editor of the Star Tribune, wrote that. I found the quote in the summer issue of the Delta Waterfowl magazine. Delta Waterfowl is an organization devoted to waterbird conservation and hunting. Hunting seasons for songbirds are not going to happen, obviously, and shouldn’t. But songbirds have more population problems than game birds do. Why? Could it be that hunters invest more passion, energy, and money into conservation of their chosen species? Do hunters have more political clout than birders do?Except for the bang factor, do you see difference between hunters and birders? If Anderson is right, why do we have to kill them to save them?Â

Al writes to tell me that Barn Swallows are bothering his bluebird nest boxes. They’re nesting in them, he says. How is he handling this? He’s shooting them. No, no, no, no. Can’t shoot songbirds. There’s a federal law against that. Plus, his ‘problem’ birds can’t be Barn Swallows. That species doesn’t nest in boxes. His birds have to be Tree Swallows, the bluebird’s friend. Tree Swallows use nest boxes. This is the theory: If you place two nest boxes close to each other, say 15 feet apart, swallows will occupy one and then defend that territory from use by another pair of Tree Swallows. This leaves the second box for bluebirds (or House Wrens or Black-capped Chickadees). The swallows don’t care if bluebirds are close neighbors. They don’t compete for food. Both eat insects, but swallows capture bugs on the wing while bluebirds pick them from the ground. Problem birds? How do you handle it?