Friday, October 10, 2014

Potter's Forest - Hales Corner's

Tucked away in the corner of the Whitnall Park area, is this gem of 50+ acres of woods is missed by most visitors. You may come across one or two locals walking these trails, but nowhere near the number encountered elsewhere. There is no shortage of wildlife here however as you will certainly come across dozens of Eastern Chipmunks, Grey Squirrels, White Tailed Deer, and a wide variety of birds, this day including two Merlins - moderate sized falcons that were probably migrating through the area this fine fall morning.

To get to the trails, you'll have to park on the road and walk a few hundred yards, but it's not so bad of a walk.




The trails are well marked and easy on the difficulty scale. The land is owned by the Milwaukee Public Schools but is mostly used for their 'ropes' course. A quick search of the history of this piece of land shows that it was a section of farm land originally settled back in the 1830's and may have some virgin trees still standing here. HISTORY



Surrounding land was cleared by settlers for farming or burned by the Potawatomi to encourage wildlife, but perhaps here is one of the last stands of virgin forest. If you are in this area, be sure to check it out.