Gifford Pinchot State Park Observation Report

This past Wednesday at Gifford Pinchot State Park, a 2,338-acre park in York County Pennsylvania, it was a warm but windy day. The park is home to a manmade lake, and manmade infrastructure is visible throughout the area. Because of the recent rainfall, parts of the dock systems, paved trails, picnic areas, and cement lip of the pond were underwater several inches. It was evident that this kind of water rise picked up more than leaves and lawn fertilizer, because we observed a large amount of plastics water bottles, wrappers, and worm containers floating near the edges of the lake. The parking area and main buildings had been landscaped some time ago, as there were many evergreen trees (white pine, cedar, hemlock, and red pine) that were not uniform with the rest of the forested area that appeared to be made up mostly of hardwood.

In total there was close to sixty birds that were resting on land. One bird in particular had an arrow from its front breast that protruded through the body and out from under the wing, it was still alive. Gray squirrel were common in the area and a few smaller finch sized birds were spotted. There seemed to be plenty of food in the area to support wildlife. There were many acorns, red berries on smaller alders, wild choke cherries, hemlock seed cones, “wild” grapes, and insect.

The forested areas of the park were made up of mostly White Oaks. There was a vast difference is the age and size of the trees as there were few mature trees, but a large number of younger 3”-6” in diameter oaks, ash, and other trees. Though it was fall, “die back” could be seen on many of the trees with areas of peeling bark, large sections of dead limbs, and sections of the trunk experiencing rot. The bushes and woody vines that were protected from the canopy of the larger trees still held onto green