
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:
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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. |
THE MONTICELLO BIRD ALERT
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.
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Newsletter Submissions:
Deadline for submissions to the newsletter is the 18th of the month preceding publication. Please email information to: