>Citizen Science

Build a Brighter Future for Birds

You can make a real difference to the future of birds and the habitats that support them. In fact, much of the work that has been done so far has been based on fieldwork contributed by committed bird conservationists. "To identify sites, we want to work with local people who are stakeholders in these landscapes," says Dan Niven, director of the Important Bird Areas (IBA) program. "History has shown a real interest in bird monitoring through programs like the Christmas Bird Count. With IBAs, we're providing a structure to channel all this energy into programs that have a measurable effect. People can also work with private landowners to better manage their property or work with policy makers at the state and federal level to become advocates for protection."

To see examples of ways local groups have contributed to IBA efforts, please check the IBA web site and web pages of Audubon state offices, available at www.audubon.org. When possible, we recommend that you coordinate activities with your state IBA coordinator.

Nominate a site or organize volunteers who can fill out nomination forms for sites in your area. Contact your state IBA coordinator to determine the status of nominations in your state.

Organize a bird survey at an IBA or potential IBA for a WatchList species. See the Audubon web site or contact your state IBA coordinator.

Write articles and letters about IBAs in newsletters, magazines, newspapers, and other outlets to teach the public about the important bird habitats in their area.

Participate in a Christmas Bird Count in or near an IBA. For information about CBCs, visit www.audubon.org/bird/cbc.

Adopt an IBA and help develop a conservation plan for the site in partnership with IBA staff and local stakeholders.

Volunteer for a project to restore habitat or eradicate invasive species at an IBA.

Recruit and organize volunteers to help at an IBA managed by a wildlife refuge, state park, or land trust near you.

Advocate for land-acquisition funds for an IBA where land acquisition is under way.

Lobby for changes in laws and policies that would benefit birds of concern at IBAs.

Create a slide show or children's education program that will help teach people about IBAs and the amazing bird stories connected with them.

Develop a program that organizes birding field trips to an IBA in your area.

Follow the Audubon at Home guidelines for a healthy yard (for information, go to www.audubon.org/bird/at_home), and encourage habitat management that is beneficial to the birds of concern at an IBA near you.

Help provide financial support to an IBA program. (For example, some Audubon chapters have donated Birdathon proceeds to IBA programs.)

For more information about the Important Bird Areas program, visit our
web site at www.audubon.org/bird/iba.

 

 

Audubon's Introduction to Important Bird Areas

Text by Frank Graham Jr.

The important bird areas (IBA) program emerged from a recognition that the loss and fragmentation of suitable habitat is the primary threat to birds everywhere in the world. It is designed to identify a network of sites that provide critical breeding, wintering, or migration stopover habitat for birdlife throughout the world.

In the United States, the process of identifying IBAs varies by state. Frequently, though, site decisions made by biologists are based on data compiled by armies of citizen scientists. IBAs may be vast or small, and on public or private lands. The National Audubon Society, as a partner designate of BirdLife International, administers the IBA program in this country.

To qualify as an IBA, a site must meet at least one of four criteria, each associated with a different type of vulnerability. It must support 1) endangered or threatened species; 2) species that are not widely distributed; 3) species that are restricted to a single extensive habitat or biome; or 4) high densities of congregating species, such as waterfowl or shorebirds.

The IBAs here are a sampling of the current 1,500-plus sites selected in the United States. They represent a variety of habitats, at-risk species, and conservation issues. IBA designation helps birds even in protected areas, where such a designation can influence management policy for critical habitats and may also channel funding to IBA-related projects in those areas.

FITZNER-EBERHARDT ARID LANDS
ECOLOGY RESERVE
Where: Washington. Habitat: A large area of shrub-steppe, with a presettlement ecology almost unique in the Columbia Basin, with treeless, subalpine ridges and bunchgrass grasslands. Importance: Although the long-billed curlew is North America's largest shorebird, it spends summers on the West's dry grasslands. This WatchList species has declined as farming has claimed much of its favorite breeding habitat. Threats: Fire; introduced plants.

LOSTWOOD AND DES LACS NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGES
and APPAM LAKE WATERFOWL PRODUCTION AREA
Where: North Dakota. Habitat: The prairie pothole region is America's great waterfowl production area. Lostwood's 26,900 acres are the largest contiguous block of federal pothole habitat. Importance: The Wilson's phalarope depends on this region for nesting. This IBA supports a wide variety of nesting waterfowl and shorebirds, plus six species of grebes and such WatchList birds as Baird's and clay-colored sparrows. Threats: Conversion to farmland.

HORICON MARSH
Where: Wisconsin. Habitat: This 32,000-acre wetlands is the biggest freshwater cattail marsh in the United States. Importance: This is the largest nesting area in the eastern United States for the redhead, whose population has fallen more steeply than that of most other ducks, perhaps from the loss of large freshwater marshes. With a species list at 268, Horicon is an important breeding area and migration stop for many other birds, too. Threats: Nonpoint water pollution with excessive sedimentation and nutrient loading; poor land-use planning; invasive species.

THE WILDS
Where: Ohio. Habitat: This IBA has nearly 10,000 acres of privately owned land that has been reclaimed from strip mining and replanted to a variety of grasses, including native prairie. The resurgent grasslands are interspersed with woodlands and a variety of lakes created by the mining process. Importance: The Henslow's sparrow is one of several grassland birds making a comeback on this restored prairie. Others include savannah and grasshopper sparrows, bobolinks, eastern meadowlarks, horned larks, and short-eared owls. Threats: Invasive species.

BICKNELL'S THRUSH IMPORTANT BIRD AREA
Where: Vermont. Habitat: This IBA is made up of mountaintops covered by nearly impenetrable thickets of stunted balsam fir and red spruce at elevations of at least 2,700 feet. Importance: The Bicknell's thrush, a WatchList species, breeds only in the northeastern United States, except for a few breeding populations on steep slopes to Quebec and Nova Scotia. Threats: Acid rain; changes caused by global warming; ski slopes, biking trails, and communication and wind towers.

MONTEZUMA WETLANDS COMPLEX
Where: New York. Habitat: Broad, flat basins cut by glacial formations called drumlins, combined with marshes, swamps, upland forests, grasslands, and agricultural land, produce a patchwork of good bird habitat. Importance: American black ducks are part of the area's million-plus migrating waterfowl. Large numbers of shorebirds, waders, and raptors migrate through; some breed here. Three bald eagle pairs and New York's largest population of cerulean warblers nest near wetlands. Threats: Invasive plants; agriculture; natural succession.

DELAWARE COASTAL ZONE
Where: Delaware. Habitat: Extensive wetlands, well stocked with suitable prey to "refuel" thousands of shorebirds on their arduous migrations, have long been in short supply. This IBA includes about 270,000 acres of wetlands, inland bays, and uplands, as well as the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. Importance: The red knot, whose populations have declined since the 1960s for as-yet-undiscovered reasons, is one of many shorebirds attracted to this area. Several Audubon WatchList and endangered or threatened species breed here, including the piping plover, American black duck, least tern, chuck-will's-widow, saltmarsh sharp-tailed sparrow, seaside sparrow, and brown-headed nuthatch. In spring, migrants that breed in northern latitudes, including short-billed dowitchers, semipalmated sandpipers, sanderlings, dunlins, and ruddy turnstones, use this prime feeding area. Threats: Housing development and the excessive take of horseshoe crabs, on whose eggs hundreds of thousands of spring migrating shorebirds depend for food.

LEA-HUTAFF ISLANDS
Where: North Carolina. Habitat: This IBA, on two of the state's few remaining undeveloped barrier islands, is characterized by bare sand and salt marsh. Importance: The least tern is one of the area's spectacular array of beach-nesting seabirds and shorebirds. The islands also support thousands of migrating shorebirds, waders, and marsh birds. Threats: Although Hutaff Island is still owned by a single family, Lea Island has been subdivided and sold to 42 individual buyers. Human disturbance to nesting areas seems imminent.

EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK
Where: Florida. Habitat: One of the world's premier wetlands, the Everglades is a vast, shallow "river" underlying sawgrass marsh, tidal marsh, tropical hammock, mangrove, bayhead, cypress, slash pine, flatwood, and estuarine habitats. Importance: The park supports most of the world's population of the Cape Sable seaside sparrow. The area is also a vital haven for a significant variety of wading birds. Threats: Interruption of the area's historic water flow, for housing and agriculture outside the park; invasive plant species.

SABAL PALM AUDUBON CENTER and SANCTUARY
Where: Texas. Habitat: Cradled in a bend of the Rio Grande, this 527-acre sanctuary holds a remnant of a once-extensive sabal palm forest and the semitropical ecosystem it sustains. Importance: The buff-bellied hummingbird is a WatchList species and the only hummer to nest regularly in southern Texas. This IBA's forest is also home to olive sparrows, least grebes, great kiskadees, green jays, yellow-green vireos, and plain chachalacas. Threats: Overdraft of water from the Rio Grande; agricultural herbicides and pesticides; loss of adjacent habitat to development.

OTERO and CEDRO CANYONS
Where: New Mexico. Habitat: Mature pinyon-juniper woodland and ponderosa pine cover the canyon slopes and ridges. Cottonwoods and willows line the perennial stream through Cedro Canyon. Perennial streams, rare in desert mountains, are important for migrating birds. Importance: Black-throated gray warblers breed here in summer in high densities. Other key species are gray flycatchers, Grace's and Virginia's warblers, western bluebirds, and pygmy nuthatches. Threats: Cowbirds, which parasitize the nests of other species; increased use by rock climbers.

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK
Where: Wyoming. Habitat: The park's 2,219,791 acres were created by volcanic activity and sculpted by glaciers, water, and wind. Coniferous woodlands dominate much of the high country but share it with meadows, sagebrush, and geyser basins. Importance: Yellowstone's white pelican, larger than the coastal breeding brown pelican, remains vulnerable to disturbance in its preferred breeding spots on islands in park lakes. Threats: Pressure from tourism and recreation; development on the park's fringes.

SAN PEDRO RIPARIAN NATIONAL
CONSERVATION AREA
Where: Arizona. Habitat: This IBA has superb desert riparian woodland; the San Pedro River is one of the Southwest's few free-flowing rivers. The area has rich stands of Fremont cottonwoods and Gooddings willows, a mesquite bosque, and sacaton grasslands. Importance: Perhaps 30 percent of the western U.S. population of yellow-billed cuckoos breed here. This is also a key gray hawk breeding site. Threats: Water extraction from the area's population growth; illegal-alien passage, resulting in resource damage, trash, and fire threats.

BIG SUR MOUTH/POINT SUR
Where: California. Habitat: Coastal scrub and grasslands are dominant. The area's nearly pristine sycamore, cottonwood, and willow woodlands, the redwood forest, and the overall ecological diversity that occurs at the meeting of river and ocean attract large numbers of resident, breeding, and migrating birds. Importance: This IBA is home to many WatchList species, including the California thrasher, the only thrasher along the state's coastal slope. This area's varied topography and plant life sustain breeding mountain quail, purple martins, winter wrens, and yellow-breasted chats. Federally endangered California condors, not long ago extirpated from the wild, are being released nearby. Threats: This area's long history of human use has resulted in the introduction of invasive plants and animals. European starlings appropriate nesting sites from native purple martins and woodpeckers, while brown-headed cowbirds parasitize the nests of other breeding species.

KENNESAW MOUNTAIN NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD PARK
Where: Georgia. Habitat: Hardwoods and pines mix on the steep slopes of this double-peaked ridge where Confederate troops dealt a bloody setback to General Sherman's army on its way to Atlanta in 1864. Importance: The cerulean warbler, an Audubon WatchList species, is declining. During migration, when many migrants funnel through this part of the lower Appalachians, it can be seen more frequently here than anywhere else in the Southeast. Threats: Development and urban sprawl.

PASCAGOULA RIVER and WARD BAYOU WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT AREAS
Where: Mississippi. Habitat: This area is a key part of the largest, mainly unfragmented river system in the lower 48 states. Bottomland hardwoods mingle with cypress and pine throughout this aquatic region. Importance: The swallow-tailed kite, surely North America's most beautiful bird of prey, has been extirpated from many parts of its former range. It finds critical habitat here, as do Mississippi kites and Swainson's, Kentucky, and prothonotary warblers. Threats: Timber management; invasive plants, including Japanese climbing fern, privet, and cogon grass.

COMANCHE NATIONAL GRASSLAND
Where: Colorado. Habitat: Shortgrass prairie, with sand sagebrush and mixed grasses, cover the sandy soils and rolling hills. The land is marked by frequent dry washes. Importance: The lesser prairie chicken has declined by more than 92 percent since the 1880s, and at least 5 percent of its current world population may be confined to this IBA. Threats: Overgrazing, as well as human disturbance.