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 2008-2009 season marks the twenty third 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.

The Monticello Bird Club will hold the monthly meetings at 7:30 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month. 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 Amy Gilmer at akgilmer@comcast.net or send to 2341 Highland Avenue, Charlottesville, VA 22903.

Join us again in September when we begin our next season.

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.

Bachman Sparrow by Bob Ake

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.

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.

Check out this link to the Macaulay Library, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, for 80 years of recordings of animal sounds and behavior, including 67% of the world's bird species. FREE. Click Here.