Wetlands like Old Crow offer vitally diverse habitat, tourism hotspots that deserve improved protection

The least bittern is a wetland species that is fairly rare in central Pennsylvania but can be found at Old Crow Wetland in Huntingdon County. Photo by Mark Nale.

Riverkeeper note: This blog post was written by West Branch Regional Director Andrew Bechdel. You can reach him via email at [email protected]​​

For birder Greg Grove, the Old Crow Wetland along Huntington County’s Route 26 has been a routine birding spot for more than two decades.

“I began birding at Old Crow soon after it was established, as early as 1998,” he said. “I have submitted 283 eBird checklists, but my number of visits is far higher, probably double or triple 283 because I did not begin eBird usage until about 2011.”

What keeps bringing him back to the site?

“Over 220 bird species have been documented at Old Crow through eBird submissions,” Grove said. “Many very common, many very rare - like Ruff, White-faced Ibis, Black-bellied Whistling Duck to name some species not found on even an annual basis anywhere in Pennsylvania.”

In 1997, PennDOT restored the Old Crow wetland, a previously converted agriculture field managed by the SCI prison. According to Thomas Yokum of PennDOT, “under federal and state law, PennDOT is required to mitigate wetlands that are destroyed by the process of road construction.”

If one acre of wetland is destroyed, one acre of wetland should be created or credited from a prior project, a process called "banking." Old Crow represents one of a few active examples of that practice in the state.

Wetlands provide a wide variety of critically important aspects to the environment.

They are defined by their saturated soil and feature several types: marsh, swamp, fen, and bog. Each type has different hydrology, chemistry and specific plant communities. Marsh ecosystems, such as Old Crow, are abundant in nutrients that produce native emergent plants, scattered trees and shrubs, and a variety grasses and sedges.

The plant communities at Old Crow vary, but are “dominated by emergent vegetation - pickerelweed, broad-leaf cattail, smartweed, and swamp rose mallow,” according to Angie Spagnoli, an aquatics specialist with the state’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR). “These plants provide foraging, protection and habitat for birds, insects, reptiles and amphibians. Waterfowl and songbirds depend on the seeds and utilize the shaded areas for hunting.”

Spagnoli said the banks of the ponds also provide an array of important native shrubs - Silky dogwood, buttonbush, speckled alder and goldenrod – which serve as “food sources and reproductive locations for birds, mammals and insects.”

Buttonbush, a native plant, is a host plant for many moths and butterflies, providing growing birds with their most vital food source – caterpillars.

For visitors to Old Crow, the wetland bird species are of particular interest.

According to Grove, that list includes “waterfowl (ducks, geese, swans, grebes), rails (sora, common gallinule, Virginia rail), 15 shorebird species, 12 species of heron/egret (including Pa endangered American bittern, least bittern, black-crowned night-heron, yellow-crowned night-heron and great egret), loons, gulls, cormorants.”

The common denominator among all those interconnected species that helps Old Crow and other wetland areas thrive is good water quality, according to Grove.

“The apparent high quality of water at Old Crow supports vigorous plant growth, in turn providing habitat for insects and herps and small mammals, all of which are crucial to the fact of so many bird species using the wetland,” he said. “Birds are at/near the top of food chains – a level not supported without a very healthy base, all of which starts with water quality.”

Wetlands are a vital landscape feature we continue to lose at an alarming pace, he added.

“The ridge-and-valley region has limited wetland acreage, both as a natural landscape feature and because of conversion of marginal wetland to agriculture and other uses,” said Grove.

This means that Old Crow, along with other wetlands throughout the middle of the state, are often the only preferred habitat available to the rarer waterfowl, shorebirds and wetland species during migration.

“The layout of Old Crow allows people to get good looks at the natural goings-on of a wetland,” said Grove, adding that there is an observation deck that allows visitors to look out over the 7.5-acre wetland and see quite a bit of its natural diversity with a decent pair of binoculars.

For Grove, the value of connecting to nature in such a way is critical.

“I think people gain an appreciation of wildlife and the environment when they can see it first-hand and up close,” he said. “I believe this bit by bit creates conservationists in each of us who become more willing to support programs of benefit to wildlife and people in ways not always connected to just economic considerations.”

In addition to Old Crow, other wetlands to explore in the West Branch Susquehanna River watershed include Bear Meadows Natural Area, the Frog Pond at Bald Eagle State Park, Millbrook Marsh, Robert Porter Allan Natural Area, Cranberry Swamp Natural Area and East Branch Swamp Natural Area.

Old Crow is also part of the Susquehanna River Birding and Wildlife Trail, a series of birding locations within the Susquehanna River basin.

The Old Crow wetland is involved in a dispute involving a neighboring building project with a township supervisors meeting scheduled on Nov. 7, 2024. Learn more about this situation and the Coalition to Save Old Crow Wetland, you can utilize this link - Coalition to Save Old Crow Wetland: December 2023 Update – Juniata Valley Audubon Society (jvas.org). You can also engage with the group via the Coalition to Save Old Crow Wetland's Facebook Group.
​
For a complete of the list of all the bird species seen at Old Crow visit Old Crow Wetland, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, United States - eBird Hotspot.