During this past year, the Virginia Important Bird Areas (IBA) Program of the National Audubon Society has been busy in forwarding our mission of engaging people for bird conservation in the Commonwealth’s most critical habitats for breeding, migrating and wintering birds. The following are some exciting highlights of this past year’s events and accomplishments:

• Helped to protect the 125 acre Blair’s Wharf in the James River National Wildlife Refuge located within the Lower James River IBA

• Coordinated and conducted the first survey of the Central Piedmont IBA, focusing on the protected areas
• Expanded our Adopt-an-IBA Program to include eight bird conservation groups throughout Virginia
• Partnered with the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation to train birders from 5 Audubon Chapters and the Coastal Virginia Wildlife Observatory to identify and report Phragmites invasions throughout Virginia using an online conservation tool called LandScope – the valuable information collected will help DCR staff to ground-truth their own data and identify new stands of Phragmites to eliminate, thus preserving natural marsh habitats
• Began a partnership with the Virginia Living Museum to conduct five TogetherGreen volunteer events, thus raising awareness for Audubon and bird habitat conservation
• Worked with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries to monitor coveys of Northern Bobwhite quail, a declining species of Global Conservation Concern
• With partners at Richmond Audubon Society and Virginia Commonwealth University we have initiated a project called Team Warbler, an international alliance between the research and school communities of Richmond and Panama City that will engage academic communities at the college, elementary and middle school levels. Team Warbler focuses on the breeding and wintering habitat of the Prothonotary Warbler

From the Powell and Stone Mountains IBA in the southwest to the Barrier Island Lagoon System IBA on the Eastern Shore, Virginia’s 20 IBAs all face a large variety of threats and challenges. We would thus like to extend thanks to our donors, volunteers, adoption groups and to our public, private and non-profit partners in conservation for their help and support in furthering our mutual mission for bird conservation throughout the Commonwealth. We could not do it without you and thus ask for your continued support heading into 2011. 

Thank you!

-David A. Bryan, Outreach Coordinator, Virginia IBA Program