![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/REG-L-WoodStork1265.jpg\")
A wood stork, a rare visitor from the South, catches a fish in the Saucony Creek in Richmond Township on Saturday. (Courtesy of Carl R. Jacobs)<\/p>\nA bird that hasn\u2019t stepped foot in Berks County in 125 years dropped into the Saucony Creek, setting off a rush of enthusiastic birders to the Richmond Township waterway.<\/p>\n
A juvenile wood stork, a bird of the southern coasts, was spotted Thursday and photographed foraging in the creek along Crystal Cave Road by Trevor Stutzman.<\/p>\n
He posted the photograph to eBird and social media, creating a birding stir throughout eastern Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
The stork was still being seen Monday..<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Carl Jacobs drove an hour from his home in Bath, Northampton County, to photograph the bird.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just an unusual bird to be here,\u201d he said as he stood with a group of other birders on the open-grate bridge that carries Crystal Cave Road over the Saucony Creek. \u201cThen it becomes a challenge to find it. But he\u2019s been hanging around for I guess three days now. Makes it a little easier. He\u2019s in an area that\u2019s fairly easy to find.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jacobs photographed the stork as it foraged in the Saucony, kicking up crayfish, its preferred food in the creek, and grabbing some fish with its long, powerful beak.<\/p>\n
Rudy Keller, compiler of Berks County birds for the local Baird Ornithological Club and the Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology, watched the stork late Thursday in the rain and paid particular attention to its feeding behavior.<\/p>\n
A wood stork, a rare visitor from the South, catches a fish in the Saucony Creek in Richmond Township on Saturday. (Courtesy of Carl R. Jacobs)<\/p>\n
\u201cThe stork walked along, and it would stir with its feet,\u201d he said, \u201cwith its beak partway into the water because apparently it\u2019s sensitive \u2014 the tip of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The stork would either swish its beak around or use its feet to stir the bottom up, Keller said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat of course would scare crayfish,\u201d he said, \u201cand then if it can\u2019t see it, if the water\u2019s turbid from that, the bill might detect the movement or feel it, and get them that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keller noted that birds like storks, particularly juveniles, will engage in a post-natal dispersal that takes them wildly out of their normal range.<\/p>\n
Joe Beatrice of Muhlenberg Township couldn\u2019t resist the opportunity to put the bird on his Berks and Pennsylvania lists.<\/p>\n
\u201cThought I\u2019d get out and give it a shot today,\u201d he said from the bridge on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Brian Lineaweaver of Wernersville, one of the more active birders in Berks, photographed the bird in the rain late Thursday and returned Saturday for more photo ops.<\/p>\n
![\"Birders](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/REG-L-WoodStork1266.jpeg\")
Birders stand on a bridge over the Saucony Creek in Richmond Township to catch a glimpse of the rare wood stork on Saturday. (BILL UHRICH\/READING EAGLE)<\/p>\n
Lineaweaver also enjoys the camaraderie of other birders that these rare sightings bring out.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s running into some people you see only two or three times a year at places like this,\u201d he said. \u201cYou kind of intersect a couple times a year to catch up. It reminds me of Cape May, where a bunch of guys are pulled over and all the cameras are coming out.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to records kept by the Baird Ornithological Club, the only previous Berks record is one that was found dead in Albany Township on Nov. 11, 1921, and given to Dr. Stanley Brunner of Krumsville, who had an interest in collecting birds for a Victorian bird tableau. The wood stork was the centerpiece of his collection that was housed beginning in 1966 in the former Pennsylvania Dutch Folk Culture Museum in Lenhartsville.<\/p>\n
The current owner of the building, contacted on Saturday during the community yard sale held there, said the collection was sold at a sportsman\u2019s auction in Bethel in the early 2020s.<\/p>\n
According to Pennsylvania Birds, that Albany Township stork is the first state record for that species in the 20th century.<\/p>\n
The only other local record is one seen flying over Hawk Mountain on Sept. 6, 2023.<\/p>\n
Throughout the day Saturday, cars crept along the roads bordering the Saucony Creek with eyes peeled for the tall, white bird with black wingtips and enormous beak.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is really cool,\u201d Lineaweaver said from the bridge. \u201cWhen\u2019s the next time you\u2019re going to see a wood stork?\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/REG-L-WoodStork1267.jpeg\")
The rare wood stork alights on the Saucony Creek in Richmond Township on Saturday. (Courtesy of Carl R. Jacobs)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A bird that hasn\u2019t stepped foot in Berks County in 125 years dropped into the Saucony Creek, setting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,182,139,708,28,128,130,129,289,706],"class_list":["post-271999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-outdoors","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-things-to-do","tag-top-stories-reg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}