BUFFALO SPEAKS RESERVE: HORICON
Lisa Sattell and Martha Bergland in a Niagara Escarpment crevice at Buffalo Speaks Reserve.
Kolterman American Indian Effigy Mound and Petroform Site is located at the northeast of Horicon Marsh along Highway Z, with the City of Horicon on the distant horizon at the south end of the marsh. This state cataloged site and habitat restoration buffer, including part of Wisconsin’s Niagara Escarpment, is privately owned by Milwaukee Audubon Society.
Buffalo Speaks is an important migratory bird corridor and the adjacent stone cliffs create thermals worked by raptors. Thermals and updrafts off of the Niagara Escarpment provide lift for soaring raptors including local eagles. The escarpment landscape is a migration corridor for hopping migrants including many passerine bird species. The habitat along the escarpment is home to breeding birds and Milwaukee Audubon began acoustic monitoring of these birds in the area in June 2019.
The Niagara Escarpment provides a guiding landform for long-distance and high-flying migrants using the extended Rock River lowland between Green Bay and Rock Island, Illinois on the Mississippi River. The Niagara cuesta top provides superb vantage for watching waterfowl migration and scanning the Horicon basin. The seeps and springs issuing from the base of the escarpment provide water and bathing sites for birds and kingfisher were found nesting in a cut bank at the far northwest of the property on high ground. The habitat transitions at the escarpment and provides food, cover, and resting structures identified by Swedish Foresters as the “Dream Zone.”
Directions to Buffalo Speaks Reserve Area #1 from Milwaukee
Take Highway 41 north past Lomira to Highway 49 west at the Waupun exit; go (slowly) through Brownsville. Turn left onto Highway Z. The field is one mile south on the east side of Highway Z, less than a mile south of Highway 49.
More About Buffalo Speaks Reserve
