By Marlin Corn

In the sea of suburban sprawl that defines lower Bucks County, a handful of green islands remain, offering refuge to birders, hikers, and other nature enthusiasts; Tyler State Park, Playwicki County Park, Silver Lake Nature Center to name a few. Among these is a small jewel of a county park known as Churchville Nature Center. While dwarfed by neighboring 1500 acre Tyler, Churchville boasts a delightful diversity of bird life, with a sighting list that exceeds Tyler’s. While Churchville’s main preserve is only 55 acres, it adjoins the Churchville Reservoir, a 180-acre man-made lake, and a patchwork of county, township and water company landholdings to create a 670 acre natural area. Allow me to guide you to some of the better birding spots found here. This article will focus on areas that you can walk to from our parking lot.

Main Preserve
Our recently refurbished bird blind is a good place to start. The new blind, relocated behind our visitor center and adjacent to a small meadow, looks out into a recently installed bird garden where the feeders are located. This area has been planted with a variety of native seed and berry producing shrubs and grasses, and features a large water garden, complete with a cascading ‘brook’. The sound of rushing water and the food plants attract species that otherwise ignore bird feeders. For example, this past year I have observed cedar waxwings, indigo buntings, and at least a dozen species of warblers in this garden. Profuse plantings of cardinal flower, bee balm and other red flowers makes hummingbird sightings fairly dependable during summer months. Birdseed attracts the usual feeder birds, but a few rarities show up occasionally, most recently (this past October), a Lincoln’s sparrow.

Before heading out onto the trail system, be sure to pick up a trail map in the visitor center. Our trails are color-coded. Leaving the bird blind, it is a short walk to our natural pond on the yellow trail. The pond is a good spot for a variety of songbirds in the early morning, as it is an open spot amongst the trees and birds seem to enjoy gathering here to warm up in the early morning sun. During summer, green herons are often observed skulking amongst the vegetation on the opposite shore, and a great blue heron is occasionally spooked from the edge. Several years ago I was surprised to flush a little blue heron from this pond. It is also often productive for phoebes, kingbirds and other flycatchers.

From the pond, it is a short stroll down the boardwalk to the reservoir on the orange trail. During the spring and fall, it is not unusual to hear the shrill cry of a migrating osprey as one approaches the lake. They often perch in a snag or on our osprey-nesting platform (they have not nested yet) in the cove that pushes into the forest here. Wood ducks are often sighted swimming along the shoreline, and other waterfowl may be present, but they are usually farther out in open water. It is a good spot to scope out this section of the lake to see what is around, but you will usually need to walk to other vantage points to get closer looks (I’ll get to those). The reservoir is probably Churchville’s best birding feature. We get a wonderful diversity of waterfowl during the migration months, and many species can be seen during most winter months. Some of the most dependable species this time of year include common mergansers, ruddy ducks, pied-billed grebes and buffleheads. Most winters we will also receive sporadic visits by common loons, ring-necked ducks, hooded mergansers, gadwall, American wigeons and coots. If you are lucky, you may spot one of the less common visitors, which includes canvasbacks, redheads, snow geese, lesser and/or greater scaups, and tundra swans. Some of our rarest waterfowl sightings on the lake have included oldsquaw, Eurasian wigeon, greater white-fronted geese and a barnacle goose.

The Churchville reservoir is not just good for observing waterfowl (or birds for that matter – state endangered red-bellied turtles occur here). The open sky affords looks at any soaring raptors in the area. Aside from the usual red-tailed hawks and turkey vultures, we have had increasingly numerous sightings of black vultures and bald eagles in recent years. One of my most memorable bird sightings occurred here as I watched a bald eagle harass an osprey, a mere 100 yards in front of me. A few lucky individuals have spotted sandhill cranes, black terns, and golden eagles flying over the reservoir in recent years. In drought years, when the water level drops, we see shorebird invasions, with a nice diversity of sandpipers and plovers. The winter months are also good for a variety of gulls. As with much of the northeast, we are seeing increasingly larger numbers of lesser black-backed gulls, and have had sporadic sightings of glaucous, Icelandic and Bonaparte’s gulls.

While visiting our main preserve, a walk through the beech forest on the green trail loop (head right at the pond, then left over the boardwalk) is often productive for woodpeckers, thrushes, and woodland migrants. A typical walk during the height of spring migration will easily yield at least 40 species of birds. Dependable nesters in this tract include wood thrushes, ovenbirds and red-eyed vireos, with some occasional, less common nesters such as hairy woodpeckers, scarlet tanagers and Kentucky warblers. Winter months may see foraging by yellow-bellied sapsuckers or winter wrens. We seem to pick up at least one hermit thrush in this area on each annual Christmas count. We usually have a pair of great horned owls nesting in one of our artificial nesting platforms by late January. Check in with one of our staff members to find out if, and where they are nesting. One year they nested in the osprey platform out in the lake!

Elm Avenue
Following the green trail westward will eventually bring you close to the old railroad tracks, a defunct Septa line. This parallels Elm Avenue, which cuts across a small portion of the lake. This area is often a hot spot for migrants, which use the overgrown railway as a travel corridor. Walking along the tracks affords a great overlooking view of the reservoir. One can expect to see a splendid variety of birds here during the spring and fall, including flycatchers, cuckoos, brown thrashers (occasionally nest here), and various mixed flocks of songbirds. This seems to be where we have the best luck sighting the rarer warblers and vireos, and it is a dependable nesting location for northern orioles, white-eyed vireos, warbling vireos, yellow warblers, and others. It is also where a pair of prothonotary warblers nested this past summer; the first confirmed nesting in Bucks County. Sadly, the same day we discovered the location of the nest, we also found the male smashed on the road. Even though the speed limit is 35 mph on Elm Avenue, most vehicles seem to average about 50-60, so watch out if you walk along the road – there is not much in the way of a shoulder.

Female prothonotary warbler tending her young along Elm Avenue.
Photo by Carol Fitzpatrick

The small portion of the lake on the other side of Elm Avenue is shallow, and so is very dependable for dabbling ducks and herons. In early fall, blue-winged teal have been sighted here, and green-winged teal, northern shovelers, black ducks and gadwall usually follow a little later. Great blue herons are always there, and green herons nest there most years. Careful observation of the overhanging trees may reveal a black-crowned night heron, and in late summer great egrets are obvious visitors in this area. On the west side of this portion of the lake (to the left as you stand with the RR tracks at your back), Churchville owns a five acre tract of land that is a mix of meadow, scrub, and early successional forest. This area is usually dependable for blue-winged, yellow and prairie warblers in spring, and our bluebird boxes have had recent success here. We often see at least one family of bluebirds hanging around at any time of the year. This is a good spot for small flocking species such as waxwings and finches as well. Having the patience to hang around the Elm Avenue for a while area usually pays off, as the area is something of a bottleneck between two housing developments.

All of the areas I have just described are easy walking, and you could expect to spend about a half day of leisurely birding to cover them. These are the areas of our preserve most of our local birders concentrate on, but there are a few others worth investigating that we would be happy to direct you to. Stop in at the visitor center to say hi, and we’ll point you in the right direction.

Author with a cooper’s hawk we rescued from entanglement in local ball park.
Photo by Peg Mongillo