The Virginia Important Bird Areas are on eBird!

Our vision is that the integration of Virginia’s IBAs into eBird will allow us to better understand the status of priority species within the Commonwealth’s most critical habitats for breeding, wintering and migrating birds, and we need your help!

In particular, we hope that eBirders will bird more extensively within our 20 IBAs, carefully recording their sightings through the Virginia eBird Portal at http://ebird.org/content/va.

Of particular interest to the Program are data regarding the following species: Cerulean Warbler, Golden-winged Warbler, Rusty Blackbird, Northern Bobwhite, Red-headed Woodpecker, Henslow’s Sparrow, Northern Harrier, Peregrine Falcon, Upland Sandpiper, Purple Sandpiper, Black-billed Cuckoo, Short-eared Owl, Chuck-wills-widow, Whip-poor-will, Loggerhead Shrike, Brown-headed Nuthatch, Wood Thrush, Blue-winged Warbler, Prairie Warbler, Bay-breasted Warbler, Prothonotary Warbler, Worm-eating Warbler, Swainson’s Warbler, Louisiana Waterthrush, Kentucky Warbler, Canada Warbler, Grasshopper Sparrow, and Dickcissel. 

Information on all IBAs is important, but the following are places that we would like to focus on initially:
    •    Central Piedmont IBA
    •    Culpeper Basin IBA
    •    Lower Delmarva IBA
    •    Mount Rogers-Whitetop Mountain IBA
    •    Pine Mountain IBA
    •    Powell & Stone Mountains IBA
    •    Western Shore Marshes IBA

In particular, Virginia’s beautiful southwestern IBAs have been historically under-birded, so please consider a trip out west to explore these awesome areas of the Commonwealth!

Thank you in advance for your efforts within Virginia’s IBAs. Coupled with eBird’s data exploration capabilities, your citizen science efforts will help us prioritize our conservation projects and tune our efforts throughout the IBAs. For more information on the Program or on eBird, please contact Mary Elfner, Virginia IBA Coordinator, at melfner@audubon.org or David Bryan, Outreach Coordinator, at dbryan.audubon@gmail.com. Thanks!


*Special thanks to eBird Project Managers Brian Sullivan and Marshall Iliff for their critical guidance and help in this effort.*