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VSO Winter Field Trip,
North Carolina Outer Banks
February 3-5, 2012
VSO on the Outer Banks. © Arun Bose
Leaders: Bill Akers & Jerry Via
Make plans to join us at the Outer Banks of North Carolina February 3-5 for the VSO’s Winter field trip. We always have great waterfowl, shorebirds and raptors, along with a wide assortment of land birds. This year we’re excited to announce a special optional Friday trip to Lake Mattamuskeet, led by VSO member Lee Adams.
More details here »
Joint TOS/VSO 2012 Annual Meeting
Johnson City, Tennessee, May 18–20, 2012
Hosted by The Bristol Bird Club.
The Bristol Bird Club, a chapter of TOS and VSO, will be hosting the 2012 Joint Annual Meetings for the Tennessee Ornithological Society and the Virginia Society of Ornithology on May 18–20 in Johnson City, Tennessee which is just a few miles south of the Tennessee–Virginia stateline.
More details here »
The June 2011 Foray Results:
Alleghany County
Susan Brown and Elisa Enders
The Virginia Society of Ornithology conducted its annual breeding bird foray in Alleghany County this year, from June 11 to June 19, 2011. 108 species were tallied, at elevations from 1000 to 3400 feet. Evidence of breeding was obtained for 85 of these species. Woodland species (except for those breeding at high elevations in Virginia) were well represented in our counts, reflective of the forested nature of the county. Water birds, nocturnal birds and grassland or shrubland species were less well represented.
Download the foray summary. [32KB .rtf document] »
Download the foray summary figures and tables. [244KB .zip] »
New VARCOM Secretary
The Virginia Avian Records Committee has a new secretary. The VSO Board would like to extend its recognition and gratitude to Amy Gilmer for her several years of exceptionally hard work and dedication as the VSO's VARCOM secretary. She has stepped down, and Wendy Ealding has volunteered to be the new secretary. Thanks to Wendy for taking on this important position. Please submit any review species reports to Wendy Ealding.
Adopt an Important Bird Area
The Important Bird Areas (IBA) Program is an international bird conservation program being implemented on every continent, with 48 states participating in the United States. The aim of the program is to identify a network of sites that are essential for sustaining naturally occurring populations of bird species, and to protect or manage these sites for the long-term conservation of birds, other wildlife, and their habitats. For a site to be recognized as an IBA it must meet criteria based on bird concentrations, threatened species, or species assemblages representative of priority habitats. The Virginia IBA Program was initiated in 2002 and has been making great progress toward greater protection of our state’s vulnerable bird species. IBA identification in Virginia has produced 20 IBAs (as of November 2009) that represent our state’s very best bird habitat. It’s now time to work to protect these areas and you can help!
Local community members can play a vital role in furthering the goals of the IBA program. Through the Adopt an IBA initiative, a local group (such as an Audubon chapter, bird club, school group, etc.) adopts an IBA and participates as a group to further conservation, monitoring, or advocacy efforts on the site. Involvement can include organizing a monitoring effort, clean-up day, education program, or habitat improvement project or advocating for the IBA in the political arena. Adopting an IBA can help in the conservation of the site by raising awareness about the importance of the site and building a local group of constituents that care about it. The IBA Adoption Group Guidelines can be downloaded here » 84 KB MS Word® Doc.
Please note that it may be possible to receive a Virginia Society of Ornithology Conservation Grant to help support IBA Adoption efforts. Please visit the VSO Conservation Commiittee page for more information.
What is eBird?
A real-time, online checklist program, eBird has revolutionized the way that the birding community reports and accesses information about birds. Launched in 2002 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society, eBird provides rich data sources for basic information on bird abundance and distribution at a variety of spatial and temporal scales.
VSO’s Principles of Birding Ethics
In the Fall 2008 issue of the Virginia Society of Ornithology newsletter, VSO President David Spears said, “In the Federalist Papers, Hamilton and Madison wrote, 'If men were angels, no government would be necessary.' But men aren't angels, they went on to argue, and therefore we need rules to govern our behavior. What about birders? Are we all angels? Do we need rules?”
President Spears' article continued on this idea of rules for birding and defining ethical birding behavior. The Virginia Society of Ornithology recently adopted a set of principles for birding ethically. The VSO has been considering the issues related to birding ethics for the past year. These issues have been discussed at length on the VA-Bird listserv, in emails, at VSO board meetings and field trips, in the VSO newsletter and who knows where else. Birding organizations across the country and the world are considering or have enacted similar policies. Many organizations have adopted the American Birding Association's code of birding ethics. The VSO's Principles of Birding Ethics are based on this ABA code. The VSO hopes these are guidelines that birders in Virginia will support and abide by. Please share copies of the principles with your birding friends. Download VSO's Principles of Birding Ethics ...>>