Areas set aside to help protect birds

In the late 1980s, the organization Birdlife International initiated a worldwide program to focus conservation efforts on habitat crucial for the preservation of many threatened bird species. This network has developed over the years to include partnerships in 178 countries and resulted in the designation of more than 8,000 areas considered to be of critical importance to birds.

Here in the United States, the National Audubon Society oversees this project, known as Important Bird Areas and usually referred to as the IBA program. Each state has established its own initiative, and Virginia has been working on the designation of IBA sites since 2002. In order to qualify for inclusion in the IBA registry, a site must meet at least one of the following criteria.

—The area must support species of conservation concern, such as those listed as endangered or threatened.
—The area provides habitat to species that concentrate at high densities.
—The area is inhabited by a restricted range species (one that is only able to survive in a very specific, and usually limited, type of environment).

Virginia has already designated 12 IBAs, and evaluation of seven other identified sites is under consideration. Two IBAs in our state, the lower Rappahannock River and the Eastern Shore barrier islands, are recognized on a global level as essential areas for preservation. Other IBAs on the coastal plain include the Great Dismal Swamp, Piney Grove in Sussex County and the Delmarva Bayside Marshes.

Closer to Lynchburg, high elevation sections of both Amherst and Bedford counties are included within the Upper Blue Ridge IBA. This area provides breeding habitat for the cerulean warbler, a species that has declined dramatically over its entire range. Another site, to the north of us near Culpeper, is under consideration as an IBA because of its importance to the population of grassland species.

Mary Elfner, the coordinator of the Virginia IBA program, will speak to the Lynchburg Bird Club on Nov. 12. The meeting is at 7 p.m. in Room 315, Martin Science Hall on the campus of Randolph College. You are welcome to attend to hear more about the project and learn how you may become involved in this effort to preserve essential habitat for those species in decline.

News and Notes
On Oct. 30, a group from the Lynchburg Bird Club went to Johnson’s Orchard in Bedford County, one of the new sites on the Virginia Birding and Wildlife Trail. We were really surprised to see a flock of about 100 pine siskins.

Mary Pat Morris, of Boonsboro, had a new late date record for a ruby-throated hummingbird. The bird, which had been visiting the feeder since mid-October, was still present on Oct. 31.