monticello_bird_club_charlottesville

Welcome to The Monticello Bird Club
in Charlottesville, VA

The Monticello Bird Club is an informal group of about 150 people who join together to share their enthusiasm for birds. Our monthly meetings feature invited speakers from throughout the state who share their expertise with entertaining and informative presentations.

Field trips with experienced leaders to local or distant sites take us to where the birds are. You don't have to be a member to join us on any of our birding field trips. Follow this link for information about our currently scheduled field trips.

The 2010-2011 season marks the twenty fifth anniversary of the Monticello Bird Club. Our meetings and field trips are always open to the public without charge. If you want to learn more about how to identify birds, their behavior and their life histories, or if you just want to talk to others with similar interests, then please join us soon on a field trip or at a meeting.

It’s Dues Time
Just a reminder that Monticello Bird Club dues for Fiscal Year 2010-2011 were due beginning
July 1st (our current fiscal year is from July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2011). Dues
become “overdue” on December 31, 2010, when we may terminate your Newsletter subscription.
Membership categories are: Individual Member $15, Family/Contributing Member $25
and Sponsor $50. A membership form can be downloaded from this membership form link.

Please note our new meeting time is 7:00 pm.

The Monticello Bird Club will hold the monthly meetings at 7:00 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month, September through June. The location is the Education Building at Ivy Creek Natural Area, familiar to many as the location of the First Saturday Bird Walks. The Ivy Creek Natural Area is on Earlysville Road about a half mile from the intersection of Hydraulic Road, just before the reservoir. Plenty of parking, compatible natural setting, easy access. See you there at future meetings!
Click here for a map to the Ivy Creek Natural Area (with dial-up connection approx. 20 sec. to load image).

Read our current newsletter online here.
The editor of the MBC Newsletter welcomes submissions including articles, photographs
and notices. Please email information to Doug Rogers at mbcnews@embarqmail.com or call Doug at 434-409-8156.

September 9 Meeting

Our September 9, 2010 speaker will be Mary Elfner who will talk about birds of the Culpeper
basin. Mary A. Elfner is the Virginia Important Bird Areas (IBA) program coordinator. The
IBA program is an international effort to identify, conserve, and monitor a network of
sites that provide essential habitat for bird populations. BirdLife International began
the IBA program in Europe in 1985. Since that time, BirdLife partners in more than
100 countries have joined together to build the global IBA network. Audubon, the
BirdLife Partner in the U.S., has been working since 1995 to identify and conserve
hundreds of IBAs all across the United States. The Virginia IBA program, established
in 2002, is administered by the National Audubon Society and the Virginia Audubon
Council in cooperation with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries
and the Virginia Society of Ornithology, among others. Mary provides an overview
of the international IBA program and specific information and status of the VA IBA
effort in a presentation filled with beautiful pictures of Virginia birds, and what is
being done on-the-ground to conserve the Commonwealth’s birdlife.

October 14th Meeting topic to be announced.

New Restaurant for Speakers Dinner
Stauffer Miller
This summer Ellie and I had dinner at Lord Harwicke’s Restaurant along Rt. 29 in Charlottesville, liked it and decided to try it for our speakers’ dinners. Therefore, beginning with the dinner of
September 9th, we will be dining there.

The menu includes a nice variety of appetizers, entrées, pizzas and desserts. Also, the atmosphere may be a little quieter than at Ruby Tuesday, where we have been dining. Lord Hardwicke’s is also willing to provide separate checks. The restaurant is on the east side of Route 29, not too far north of the Barrack’s Road intersection. I would encourage you to come to these dinners, as it is fun to dine with fellow bird club members and get to know the speaker a little better.

The dinners begin at 5:30 PM, and about 6:45 we hustle out of the restaurant in
order to get to Ivy Creek by the start of the meeting. Let me know if you plan to attend so we have some sort of count to give the restaurant when we phone to make a reservation.
My number is 434 296 5505.

If you are looking for places to go birding around Charlottesville, then take a look at

The Birder's Guide to Charlottesvile and Vicinity.

This 34 page booklet was first published by the Monticello Bird Club in 2003. It has been updated to some extent, but not all information has been verified to be accurate at this time. Please let us know if you find that conditions have changed for any of the sites described here. You can download it and print sections of it as you like. Enjoy the birding !

To view or print this booklet you will need the free Acrobat Reader from Adobe. If you don't already have it you can download it here:

The Monticello Bird Club Photo of the Month
Please submit your photos to kk@ecoventurestravel.com for a future newsletter.

This kleptoparasitic Pomarine Jaeger was attempting to steal the fish from a Kittiwake off the coast of Spitsbergen Archipelago, a natural reserve far north of the arctic circle.
Photographed in July by Ken Klotz
All members are encouraged to submit photos !

To submit your photo(s) for Photo of the Month just attach it as a jpeg file (.jpg or .jpeg extension) and email it to Ken at: kk@ecoventurestravel.com.
Please include a brief caption for the photo: what it is, where it was taken, under what circumstances, or whatever you find most interesting about the photo. Photos may be cropped and resized as necessary to fit the available space.

THE MONTICELLO BIRD ALERT
Rapid Information Exchange about Rare Bird Sightings in Our Area !

The MonticelloBirdAlert provides birders in Central Virginia with an opportunity to post sightings of rare and interesting birds spotted in Charlottesville, Albemarle County, and surrounding counties. Members of the group should only post sightings of birds that are sited on public property or viewed from public roadways. Members may also post a siting of a bird on private property, if the landowner has granted express permission for you to make such a posting to this group.
Since its inception, birds reported on the MonticelloBirdAlert have included the Loggerhead Shrike, Fox Sparrow, Common Goldeneye, Horned Grebe, Horned Lark, Red Headed Woodpecker, American Woodcock, Surf Scoter, Glossy Ibis, Dunlin, American Bittern, and many more!

To join the group, please follow these steps:
1) Go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/monticellobirdalert/
2) Click on the button: Join this Group
3) If you have a Yahoo ID, sign in and go to "Step 5"
4) If you don't have a Yahoo ID, click on the link: Sign Up. (It's free.)
5) Fill in the required information, read the terms of the agreement, and signify your agreement by clicking on "I Agree".
6) Once your a member, you can post messages by sending messages to monticellobirdalert@yahoogroups.com
7) Remember the cardinal rule (stated above) about respecting private property rights.

Please note: When you sign up, you'll have the opportunity to see individual messages or receive a daily digest of messages. The individual messages will enable you to see photographs posted with email messages, however the daily digest does not enable photographs to be seen. Since the MonticelloBirdAlert only provides a trickle of a small handful of messages a day, we suggest that you set up your account to receive individual messages.