Outdoors with Jim Collins: The Muck/Marsh Creek

Published: October 30, 2011

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There are some really neat outdoor places in our area; we will highlight one of those places this week.

The Muck is a large ½ x 2 mile wetland area about 3.5 miles north of Wellsboro. I have known about this area for several years. I just never took the time to visit the place.

Linda Marie & I were biking the Pine Creek Rail/Trail on Saturday and met up with Bob Ross and Dianne Franco along the section of the trail about 2 miles below the upper end at Stokesdale, along route 287.

Turns out that Bob & Dianne are active in the Tiadaghton Audubon Society and they told us about the Muck and encouraged us to visit the place after our ride.

Our thanks to Bob and Dianne and the Tiadaghton Audubon Society for the information about The Muck and the use of it for this column. You can get quite a lot of information from their website: www.tiaudubon.org. They have information about local hotspots such as Pine Creek Gorge, The Muck/ Marsh Creek, Hammond Lake/Ives run; Cowanesque Lake and Hill Creek State Park.

The Muck is on State Game Lands 313 and with that area and surrounding private holdings it encompasses 640 acres, which is actually just exactly one square mile if my math is accurate. It was designated as an Important Bird Area by the Pennsylvania Audubon Society in 1999.

The area was drained in the l890's and planted commercially in lettuce and celery. By the l970's, labor and transportation costs and the gradual sinking of the organic soils along with increasing water levels made farming unprofitable. Due to these factors, efforts by conservation agencies to reclaim wetlands (the Pennsylvania Game Commission has played an important role here), and local control of water levels by beavers, Tioga County's Muck reverted to a completely natural state and is now a highly productive wetland providing food and cover for countless numbers of wildlife and birds.

We parked in the designed area just off route 287 and walked the stone covered path and then the wooden plank elevated walkway through the marsh and to the blind. The blind is a neat building with visual access in three directions if one simply swings open the wooden windows. We can see all sorts of

possible photography possibilities. The blind also has a guestbook which one signs and can list wildlife

sightings. We were interested in both signing the guestbook and reading past entries. We saw a spread

of Mallard duck decoys, quickly remembering that all Pennsylvania State Game Lands are purchased

with hunter's dollars and thus permit hunting. In fact nearly as many non-hunters enjoy the use of

State Game Lands.

The Tiadaghton Audubon Society was founded in 1906, making it the oldest chapter in Pennsylvania. In

1953 the current name was selected. This chapter serves Tioga & Potter counties. You can obtain lots

more information about the chapter from their website. You should also consider learning about James

Aubudon, one of the most important artists and birders in the United States; hence the reason his name

is used by the Society.

While most folks know of my lifelong passion of hunting and fishing, I am equally satisfied by simply

observing the wildlife that God graces us with. I know lots of folks who share that enthusiasm. Bob Ross

and Dianne Franco are two of those folks. We much enjoy making new friends of folks who enjoy the

outdoors.

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Jim Collins is an outdoor columnist for The Sunday Review. He can be contacted by e-mail at jimcollinsinsurance@frontier.net or by mail at Outdoors with Jim Collins, 87 Windfall Road, Alba, PA 16910.

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