Unusual tropical creature draws crowds after it’s seen in Pennsylvania for first time

UPDATE: This story has been updated to clarify the timeline of the bird’s sighting in Pennsylvania and the state of apple snail populations in Florida.

The story continues below.

Bird enthusiasts recently flocked to the southeast corner of Pennsylvania for a chance to glimpse a rare visitor.

A limpkin, a tropical wetland bird, landed in Lancaster County, making it the first-ever recorded sighting in the state’s history, according to a July 12 statement from the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

“It’s very unusual for them to be spotted up this far north,” Brian Collett, an environmental education specialist with the game commission, told McClatchy News.

The long-legged, brown-and-white-feathered bird is commonly found in South America, Mexico and Florida, according to the game commission.

But on July 7, a single limpkin landed in Lancaster’s Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area, hundreds of miles from the tropics, Collett said.

“He was hanging out in the lake right here below the visitor center,” Collett said, adding that it wasn’t long before people noticed the rare bird.

“There were probably 15 or 20 people parked on the road looking at him most of the day,” Collet said. “He was definitely attracting a lot of attention.”

The limpkin may have left its southern stomping grounds for the Keystone State to forage for snails to snack on, Collett said.

Threatening the limpkin population is the “decline of their primary prey, apple snails,” due to wetland drainage, habitat destruction and other factors, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

However, three species of invasive apple snails — which are distinct from Florida’s smaller native apple snails — are expanding their populations in the state, according to the commission.

In fact, the invasive snails have helped to save the snail kite, an endangered bird that dwells in the Everglades, according to NPR.

But, it’s unknown whether appetite for snails or pure happenstance brought the long-beaked limpkin to Pennsylvania.

“Birds do interesting things,” Collett said. “We had a wood stork in the area last year for a long time and that’s extremely uncommon. Sometimes they just go for a cruise. And sometimes weather blows them off course…So you just never quite know for sure.”

What seems more certain is that by July 10, after a three-day stint in the area, the lone limpkin had flown the coop — or at least disappeared from view.

This story was originally published July 12, 2023 at 5:40 PM.