Site Description
This site, which includes North Bend Bottoms and Van Loon State Wildlife Areas, encompasses the last 15 miles of Wisconsin’s third-largest river, the Black, before it meets the Mississippi. The site features extensive contiguous floodplain forest, as well as shallow marsh and willow thicket. Native prairie, oak savanna, and upland deciduous forest are found in the surrounding hills.
Ornithological Importance
Yellow-crowned night-herons, Acadian flycatchers, cerulean warblers, and prothonotary warblers all breed here. The site also supports red-headed woodpeckers, blue-winged warblers, and field sparrows. Waterbirds congregate in late summer and thousands of landbirds migrate through, particularly in the spring.
Van Loon Bottoms, photo by WDNR