York County Spotlight Summary
April 25-28, 2025
The PSO continued its tradition of holding a spotlight at the end of April in a southern tier county and we seem to have hit the jackpot on this year’s adventure. York is 11th for the most checklists of all time on eBird and 22nd for all-time in species with 294. Each year will be dependent on mother nature with weather, we had some rain Saturday morning and some high winds the rest of the day which continued into Sunday morning.
We reached out to a former PSO board member and current member Chuck Berthoud, who has joined us on a few spotlights to help us canvas his home county of York. He brought in some locals to help him including David Arrow, Evan Vaeth, and Jady Conroy.
They did a fantastic job lining up some trips as well as creating a long list of spots with links for self-birding locations. As usual, we had many join the main group but some came and went and others just did their own thing all while helping the cause by sharing their eBird lists with PSO Birding Data on their checklists.
Friday morning led us to Codorus State Park for a walk around the Rummel Farm and Mary Ann Furnace trail. Spring migrants were upon us as soon as we pulled into the parking lot hearing some Yellow Warblers, Common Yellowthroats, Eastern Phoebes, Grasshopper Sparrows and many more. We had a nice level trail walk up through the fields, through some woods and were greeted by many Ovenbirds, flyover Red-headed Woodpecker, Northern Parula, Black-and-white Warbler and more. Evan had scouted the area prior and knew Pine Warbler was around and we ended up hearing several on the walk as well as White-eyed Vireo. Getting to the water’s edge we were lucky to find some other new birds in Killdeer, Bonaparte’s Gull, American Herring Gull, Blue Winged Teal and Great Egret.
From there we headed to Hoff Rd Launch & Smith Point Area which had a wonderful feeding station that we could have sat there for hours watching. We got excited when we heard Wild Turkey calling but soon realized over the cove, there was some caged poultry and turkeys keep calling during our visit. We had to remove it from the day list.
Next stop was West Manheim Township Rec Park, it was just starting to spit rain a bit but we saw Purple Martin hotels and at first only saw House Sparrow which was new for the day but soon were able to see almost a dozen Purple Martin.
Long Arm Reservoir was our next stop and the fields were alive with Grasshopper Sparrow, Eastern Meadowlark, and Eastern Kingbird.
Spring Grove Paper Mill Pond got us excited when we saw Gadwall and Ring-necked Duck as well as Belted Kingfisher. Chuck was able to get us permission to try and see the Trumpeter Swans, and he was told there were 4 that day. We searched the area but weren’t able to find any large white birds. Just as we were about to leave, we saw an immature Trumpeter come down the creek, then a 2nd one joined it. We never saw the adults, but that was okay. We also got to see over 30 Great Blue Herons on their rookery which was a treat.
Chuck did hit a spot to add Green Heron for the weekend as well as Eastern Screech Owl. I called it a night to recharge for the full weekend. Warren & Nina Wolf joined us for the weekend and did a good bit of solo birding on their own adding to the spotlights tally several days. We ended up with 103 species on day one.
Joe Gyekis and his family joined me in our AirBnB near Wrightsville and he was up before dawn for the 2nd day, getting some good birds like Yellow-throated Warbler, and while I was getting ready I heard a Wild Turkey gobbling several times. We left a bit early to hit the river and lucked out by seeing a Hooded Merganser come up river above us. We headed to meet the crew at the York Galleria mall and it just started to rain lightly which was the theme until after lunch. We saw nesting Canada Goose right in the parking lot, heard a Green Heron nearby and the day was off.
We started at the Robert A. Kinsley property owned by the Lancaster Nature Conservancy and were ready to find out what the heavy wooded areas were going to offer on the wonderful trail. We soon found some warblers with the most notable being Worm-eating and Nashville. A small flock of Common Loon seen flying overhead was a thrill for all of us. As the rain was picking up a bit some of us turned back and tried for some owls in the thick evergreen stands while others kept going a bit further and got into a really nice warbler flock which offered Blue-winged, Tennessee, Blackburnian, and Black-throated Blue among the swarms of Myrtle and handfuls of Black-throated Green and Black-and-white Warblers, plus Northern Parula, Ovenbird and Red-eyed Vireo in the mix. Jeff Kenney and Joe laughed at how intently some of us were focused on trying to observe breeding behaviors of a Downy Woodpecker pair in the midst of this first big mixed species flock of the season–atlasing can be addictive!
Next stop was Wizard Ranch Nature Preserve which offered quite a mix of habitat. Just out of the parking lot, we heard a song and debated Orchard Oriole, Rose-breasted Grosbeak–oops there it is, actually a Blue Grosbeak! A Swamp sparrow was also a new one for our list, the views on some of this walk were incredible, some streams, open fields and nice woods.
Lunch was on everyone’s mind, so we went to the John Wright restaurant right on the river at Wrightsville. We got to sit outside on the patio and enjoy the birds while relaxing. Joe was able to find us a Bank Swallow which was a new one for the spotlight and after eating, a few of us were able to hear and tally the Yellow-throated Warbler. The big surprise came during lunch when some alerts and phone calls were letting us know that a Western Cattle Egret was found at Lake Redman by Bob Reiter. This was a lifer, state bird or county bird, etc. for many of us. We all zipped over there and some of us actually drove past it as it was in the field across from the parking lot in Sparton Rd. If someone under age 25 actually calls you on the phone instead of texting, it might be because you just drove past the rarity. After some nice birding over on the boardwalk, some of us split up or peeled off for the day. Chuck went for the Black-crowned Night Heron; Joe and I went to the river to see the super choppy water as the wind picked up in the afternoon. We ended day 2 with 128 species.
Sunday morning had most of us traveling to Gifford Pinchot State Park. The winds were still pretty strong coming off the water but we were happy to find 2 Ruddy Duck on the far edge, as well as Gadwall and American Wigeon. Court Harding’s sharp eyes found us a roosting Barred Owl in a wood duck box in the middle of the woods on a trail. After lunch, more people peeled off and smaller groups rounded out the day. We ended day 3 with 140 species.
Monday morning was mostly locals who were able to get out and about to hit some things and try to find some missing species. Chuck was able to find several flycatchers but since they were silent, he wasn’t able to put an official name on them, calling them only Traill’s which is the name that was split into the Alder and Willow Flycatcher.
So, our 4-day county spotlight ended with 149 species, 176 checklists with 39 pictures and 3 with audio. Here is the eBird trip report to see how we did York County Birding Spotlight – eBird Trip Report (https://ebird.org/tripreport/323662)
We knew this county was more populated than most we pick, but it was a southern tier county and being along the Susquehanna River was a high attraction for the end of April.
We thank all those who spent time planning and organizing as well as those who traveled to be part of these things and help bird with purpose for the spotlight as well as so many atlas codes that were in many of the eBird checklists. This was the highest species count for any spotlight yet and it was enjoyable to have so many new year birds being added to our personal lists.
Our next 2025 spotlight takes us up to the Northeastern Pennsylvania area of Susquehanna County in October, which I have zero birds in, so I am looking forward to that one a bit more than usual. If I can sneak at least 1 checklist into bordering Bradford County, I will have finally gotten birds in all 67 counties which is a fun thing to do. If you enjoy doing these spotlights or reading about them, please consider joining PSO or if already a member, consider a gift membership to someone who would enjoy these types of things we do for free for our state birding community.
I would also like to thank Chuck Berthoud, Joe Gyekis and Jessie Sauder for helping me with this writeup summary.
