are not true mountains: instead millions of years of erosion have made this a dissected plateau, causing the "mountainous" terrain seen today. The hardest of the ancient rocks are on top of the ridges, while the softer rocks eroded away forming the valleys. The park is in the West Branch Pine Creek drainage basin, where the underlying rocks are primarily conglomerate, sandstone, and shale. Two major rock formations are present in Cherry Springs State Park, both at least partly from the Carboniferous period. The youngest of these, which forms the highest points in the park, is the early Pennsylvanian Pottsville Formation, a gray conglomerate that may contain sandstone, siltstone, and shale, as well as anthracite coal. The lower formation is the late Devonian and early Mississippian Huntley Mountain Formation, which is made of relatively soft grayish-red shale and olive-gray sandstone. Outside the park the creek has cut down into the Devonian Catskill Formation, a reddish sandstone. The Allegheny Plateau has a continental climate, with occasional severe low temperatures in winter and average daily temperature ranges of 20 °F (11 °C) in winter and 26 °F (14 °C) in summer. The mean annual precipitation for the West Branch Pine Creek watershed is . January is the coldest month at Cherry Springs, July the warmest, and June the wettest. The highest recorded temperature at the park was in 1966, and the record low was in 1963. Ecology Cherry Springs State Park and the surrounding Susquehannock State Forest have recovered from the clearcutting of the lumber era. However, the composition of the forests has changed, so that there are now more hardwoods, including sugar maple and black cherry, and fewer eastern white pine and eastern hemlock. The park also has apple trees from the CCC orchard. Over 400 species of birds have been found in Pennsylvania, including 186 that breed in the state. Birds such as ospreys, hawks, owls, nightjars, and bald eagles have returned to the park and state forest, and saw-whet owls have been studied in the park. Some animals which had been locally extinct have also returned or been reintroduced to the area, including white-tailed deer, elk, fishers (a type of weasel), and otters. Although banned in the park, hunting is allowed in the surrounding state forest, which regained its title as a "sportsmen's paradise" in the 20th century. Game species include black bears, white-tailed deer, ducks, ruffed grouse, rabbits,