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The Bog Haunter THE BOG HAUNTER Volume 2, Number 1 the newsletter of the Friends of the Cedarburg Bog January, 2007 BUTCHER BIRD Shrikes are songbirds of brushy dense and sinks at 39 degrees F. An uncommon visitor to the Bog's fields and forest edges. Their As it continues to chill, the colder winter landscape, the Northern flight is quick and direct, and (now lighter) water floats to the shrike is part of a two-species, they dip low as they fly from one surface and eventually freezes, shrike tag team that has divided watch post to the next. Both leaving aquatic critters in the Wisconsin according to season. species are a little smaller than a slightly warmer water at the Arriving in Wisconsin from Canada Blue jay, big-headed, plump, and bottom. The first layer of clear in late October on the heels of gray, with a striking black mask ice that protects them from migrating songbirds and leaving and with white patches visible on predators from above, like by March, the Northern shrike the underside of the wings in raccoons and kingfishers, traps overlaps the Loggerhead shrike, flight. them in the lake basin. its increasingly rare, more southern relative, at each end of The Northern shrike's mask is Enough sunlight gets through the the Loggerhead's stay here in the narrower and appears to run new ice to allow some aquatic northern part of its summer from the bill through the eyes on plants to continue producing range. each side. A Loggerhead's mask food, using carbon dioxide, and is thicker and appears to arch adding oxygen to the system. across the bill, and it has a white But the primary method of throat and cheek patch below the mixing air into water, the action mask. Watch for shrikes or their of wind over the water's surface, caches during your winter hikes. is no longer possible. As the ice thickens and a snow cover is WINTER UNDERWATER added, less light penetrates and Covering about 165 acres in the plants die; instead of making southwest corner of the Cedar- oxygen, their decay consumes it. burg Bog, the largest body of By the end of a long or a severe open water in the wetland is Mud winter, oxygen may be depleted. Lake. It flows into Mud Lake From a perch atop a wire, tree or Creek and thence into Cedar Fish and other animals have bush, a shrike hunts for insects, Creek. The lake is shallow, about some strategies available to mice, and birds (it may "adopt" a 1' of open water lies over loose them as temperatures drop and bird feeder) - killing larger muck in an uneven basin that oxygen levels decrease. They species with a few sharp blows to reaches a depth of 60' in some may move to deeper parts of a the head from its hooked bill. places. That shallowness results lake (an option not available in This feisty bird will go after prey in special challenges for Mud Mud Lake), burrow into the at least its own size. Lake's inhabitants in winter. muck, reduce their metabolism, go into a state of suspended Hawks pin down their prey with Insects, other invertebrates, and animation, or hibernate (fish may strong feet while they feed, but a a variety of salamanders and sleep leaning against vegetation, shrike's weak feet don't allow frogs call Mud Lake home for part but they can't close their eyes). that. Instead, a shrike impales its or all of their life cycles. So, catch on a thorn or entangles it in according to a 1972 survey, do Although a foot of ice in a system a fork of branches. With its food 11 species of fish. While most as shallow as Mud Lake would be mechanically secured, the shrike are minnows and small pan fish, a disaster, in most years, these can feed on it. If there's more northern pike from the two adaptations allow enough food than is needed for one meal, creeks spawn there, and the lake animals to survive to repopulate it may leave the dangling carcass is home to their fingerlings. the lake in spring. for a later meal. This food storage habit has earned it the nickname Water changes temperature "Butcher bird." gradually, and it becomes most GLOSSY BUCKTHORN MY CEDARBURG BOG There is an island with tall, The story of any natural area The Cedarburg Bog is a State solemn trees, and dirt paths that today includes a chapter on alien Natural Area that is a mile from twist around old rocks and older species. Alien species labeled my home. It is great sprawling roots. My mother tells the stories invasive experience dramatic acres of wetland, woods and of this place, how someday the population explosions in the marsh and open water. I grew entire bog will have these trees, absence of predators and pests up there. the deer will roam everywhere from their homelands, and they over what was once water. There threaten the native species and I used to squirm beneath the will be a deep calmness over the ecosystems of their new home. chain-link fence and run down a random garble of wetlands, but grassy path beneath the pine the memory of it will lie in deep Glossy buckthorn (Frangula alnus) trees, among the hillocks and sod and never be truly gone. was imported to the northeastern black raspberry brambles. Down United States in 1875 as a lawn the rickety stairs and onto the shrub. It has been present in the old, weathered boardwalk, un- Bog since the 1950's; today it is stable boards nailed end to end, considered a major threat due to frightening for the uninitiated. It the near impossibility of control or seemed to lead on forever eradication in inaccessible parts of through the marshy ground, the wetland. hummocks of grass, bright moss, scraggly weeds, and small trees. Nearly all communities in the Bog, sunny, shady, dry and wet, host Sometimes there would be larger the adaptable glossy buckthorn. trees, blown down, trees whose It crowds out other under story roots did not have enough plants in woodlands. At the Bog's purchase in the wet soil. They center, the shade it creates could made cavernous holes in the cause the decline of sun-loving black, mucky ground, filled with There is a stream spanned by a plants like the threatened Eastern water and dark leaves. The bog floating bridge, sun-bleached and Prairie fringed orchid. is layer upon layer of dead plants winter-worn. I have lain on it for rising up from the water. hours, pulling up water weeds Buckthorn produces small, green, with my best friend. Sprawled in flowers and dark purple berries all My mother knows the bog. She the spring sun, we talked of the summer. Known as a "bird-poop brought us there as children, future and the past, of what seed", the seed's journey away explained to us what had been would become of us. Our past from its parent tree is taken in a there, and what was, and why. together is as long as the board- bird's gut; in fact, chemicals in Why small mushrooms grew on walk, as deep as the layers of the fruit ensure that its trip birch husks, why mosquitoes peat beneath us. The bog is through the bird will be speedy. swarmed, why the lake water ours, as well, creating a floating filled with tiny green plants. I bridge between our past and the became comfortable with the cool Inevitable change of the future. darkness of the place, with its looming wildness. Her father is the bog's caretaker; he has mapped it slowly, on his I knew that the only reason I belly. He knows it, too, and could be there was because taught us to be at ease with its someone had cut their way in, dark wetness, to accept its Control of glossy buckthorn (and someone had laid the posts and ferocity in the winter. He showed of its relative Common buckthorn, boards and walked a path us flies locked in the frozen ice Rhamnus cathartica) is easiest in through the woods. I learned cube of a pitcher plant in winter, winter. Although there are some that this thing called nature had a slow suspension of the past, a attempts at biological controls, to be fenced off, protected, and cessation of digestion and loppers, saws and a spritz of that not everyone would brave movement. He showed us a deer herbicide (to prevent resprouting) the boardwalk and the shadowed torn apart by coyotes, its blood remain the most effective paths. Not everyone cared and fur scattered over the snowy eradication method. Join the enough to watch the slow ground. Life building on death, Friends' Stewardship Committee movement of moss across layer upon layer. He is saving and "whack" buckthorn. boulder, weeds across water. the bog for us. Someday, though I will live more to support a State Natural Area. challenging conditions of the than a mile away, I will bring my More about Wisconsin's State string bog. Sphagnum moss, children to scramble through the Natural Areas program can be cotton grass, pitcher plants, two fence and gravel and dappled sun found at species of sundews (one sundew and endless squelching soil. The www.dnr.state.wi.us/orq/land/er/ is as rare in Wisconsin as string bog changes slowly, it is the past sna and www.nrfwis.org. bogs are), blueberries, and and the future.
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