Partners: Member Highlight
Friends of Cedarburg Bog
(Photo Credit: Seth Cutright)
A We Energies Port Washington Service Center crew recently helped with the construction of three nesting platforms for ospreys around the Cedarburg Bog, a state natural area 30 miles north of Milwaukee in Ozaukee County. The project, originally proposed by the Friends of Cedarburg Bog, also included the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and American Transmission Company (ATC).
ATC donated the poles and nesting platforms while the DNR provided biological expertise to determine where platforms should be located to best attract nesting ospreys. ATC originally volunteered to provide and install the poles and platforms, but due to unexpected construction and repair jobs, appealed to We Energies to provide the equipment and crew to do the actual installation. Staff at the We Energies Port Washington Service Center responded and got the poles and nesting platforms installed on March 3.
One pole is visible from Cedar Sauk road near the intersection with Horns Corners. Naturalists advise spectators to refrain from walking into the bog for a close-up view as this can disturb the osprey and cause them to abandon the nest.
A second pole is within Cedarburg Bog and the third is located on the west side of the Bog Golf Course; if you play a round, look westward when playing holes three and four and you may see the platform nest just above the treetops.
The osprey are beginning to return to Wisconsin and search for nest sites, so it is possible these platforms will be used this year. The osprey is a threatened bird species in Wisconsin. They are a predatory bird, slightly smaller than a bald eagle and plunge into lakes to catch fish, their main food source. They are black-brown on their back and top of their wings, and mostly white on their belly and underside of wings.
Ospreys migrate south for the winter and return to Wisconsin to mate and raise their young. Their nest is usually more than three feet in diameter. Eggs are laid in mid-April and hatch about 30 days later. The young will leave the nest for the first time in mid August and will migrate south in the fall.
The Cedarburg Bog is a large cedar-tamarack swamp jointly owned by UW-Milwaukee and the DNR. For more information, visit the Friends of Cedarburg Bog website.
Milwaukee River Basin Partnership
1845 N. Farwell Avenue, Suite 100
Milwaukee, WI 53202
(414)763-6170