- Sizing
- Installation
- Personalization
- Metal Choices
- How To Order
- *Pricing varies depending on the installation rod selected, any design modifications, and the options chosen.
Our Buffalo Weather Vane, that some refer to as Bison, is crafted of copper with optional gold leafed horns. He stands on an American Indian style arrow and has brown glass eyes with black pupils to give him a more realistic appearance. Note the difference in the texturing and shaping techniques between the front and back of this design. Over time, the copper will weather a deep chocolate brown color, looking more and more like a live buffalo. Eventually, the copper will patina a lovely turquoise green but this process typically takes a number of decades.
While this weathervane has been particularly popular with customers in Wyoming and Colorado, we have also made Bison weathervanes for customers in Kansas, Kentucky, Washington state and California. A number have been given as holiday and birthday gifts.
In American Western culture the bison is commonly referred to as a ‘buffalo’. This is, however, a misnomer; though both bison and buffalo belong to the Bovid family, the term ‘buffalo’ properly applies only to the Asian Water Buffalo and African Buffalo. The historical range of Bison is roughly comprised of a triangle between the Great Bear Lake in Canada’s far northwest, south to the Mexican states of Durango and Nuevo León, and east to the Atlantic Seaboard of the United States from New York to Georgia.
Two subspecies have been described: the plains bison, smaller in size and with a more rounded hump, and the larger wood bison (Bison bison athabascae), having a taller, square hump. The wood bison is the largest extant land animal in the Americas.
The American bison is often used in North America in official seals, flags, and logos. In the United States, the American bison is a popular symbol of the Great Plains states. Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming have adopted the animal as their official state mammal, and many sports teams have chosen the bison as their mascot. In Canada, the bison is the official animal of the province of Manitoba. It is also used in the official coat of arms of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.