Albemarle County

Albemarle County is situated on the edge of Virginia’s Piedmont ecoregion, and the western edge of the county encompasses a stretch of Blue Ridge Mountains. Covering 720 square miles, Albemarle is Virginia’s sixth largest county by area. It is bordered by eight counties in total, the most of any county in the state: to the east by Fluvanna and Louisa; to the north by Orange and Greene; to the west by Rockingham, Augusta, and Nelson; and to the south by Buckingham. The incorporated city of Charlottesville lies in its center. Albemarle is home to three distinct mountain ranges – the main Blue Ridge in the west, the Ragged Mountains in the southwest, and the Southwest Mountains on the eastern side of the county. Between these ranges lie rolling hills of mixed deciduous forest, with most open country concentrated in the southern part of the county. Several rivers flow through the county, most prominently the James and Rivanna, and the entire county lies within the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Elevation ranges from just under 300 feet on the floodplains of the Rivanna, to over 3300 feet at the summit of Loft Mountain in Shenandoah National Park. In addition to Shenandoah, the county offers a wide assortment of public land including 14 county parks and the future Biscuit Run State Park. Due to its large size, habitat diversity, and multitude of birding locations, Albemarle is a true birding highlight of Central Virginia.

The history of the Albemarle County is intertwined with the history of the United States itself. Two of the nation’s founding fathers, Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe, called the county’s Southwest Mountains home. Their respective estates draw hundreds of thousands of tourists to the area each year. Jefferson notably had an affinity for birds; he kept a pet mockingbird and recorded the arrival dates of spring migrants at Monticello. President Theodore Roosevelt also has ties to Albemarle; he often visited Pine Knot, his vacation cabin near Scottsville. It was at this site where Roosevelt dubiously claimed a flock of Passenger Pigeons in 1907, which would have been one of the last sightings of the species in the wild. Albemarle’s birding history is equally rich, and it probably has some of the region’s oldest birding communities and records. Bill Minor and Charles “Mo” Stevens contributed much of our oldest knowledge about birding in the county, dating back to the 1940s. Stevens is credited with compiling the Charlottesville Bird Count for over 60 years, authoring the county’s first annotated bird checklist, and founding the county’s first organized bird club, the Turkey Sag Bird Club.

Some of Albemarle’s best birding locations can be found just outside the borders of Charlottesville. The eastern portion of the Rivanna Trail follows the Rivanna River floodplain past the Still Meadows, Dunlora and Belvedere neighborhoods. The diverse myriad of grassy and overgrown hayfields, hedgerows, successional forests, and wooded bluffs offers fantastic opportunities to find a wide variety of migrant sparrows and warblers. Just across the Rivanna lies Bentivar Marsh, a private wetland restoration that provides some of the best marsh birding in the entire piedmont region. Sora, Virginia Rail, American and Least Bittern, Marsh Wren, and other usually uncommon migrants are regularly found; the site also boasts records of rarities such as Sedge Wren, Common Gallinule, and Nelson’s Sparrow. Currently, this location is only accessible by attending a prearranged trip with one of the local birders who has permission from the property owner. The 219-acre Ivy Creek Natural Area is equally popular with birders hoping for a warbler flock and hikers looking for a well-maintained trail system. There are several hiking trails in the Southwest Mountains on the eastern side of the city, with Secluded Farm being especially popular for its Kentucky Warbler population. Ragged Mountain Natural Area, Chris Greene Lake, and the Monticello High School Lake are good spots within a short drive of town to check for waterfowl in the colder months. Observatory Mountain on the University of Virginia Campus provides an incredible spring migrant trap and is an exceptionally good site to find rarer migrants like Golden-winged Warbler. 

Western Albemarle offers stunning mountain views from the town of Crozet at the foot of the Blue Ridge. Some of the county’s best birding can also be found here. Nearly 200 species have been found at the Lickinghole Creek Basin, a great place to check for waterfowl and shorebirds. The ponds at King Family Vineyard are surprisingly productive for wetland birds, and the polo field there has some of the county’s most unexpected shorebird records. While most of the site has succumbed to development, the Old Trail subdivision still has some great sparrowing opportunities as well as several ponds. Crozet is just fifteen minutes from Shenandoah National Park, renowned by birders across the state for breeding and migrant warblers. A lucky hiker on the Appalachian Trail might encounter Ruffed Grouse, and there are several pine stands that have reliably hosted wintering Northern Saw-whet Owls the past several years. Heards Mountain and Mint Springs Valley Park are nearby alternatives to the well-travelled Shenandoah and host strong breeding populations of Cerulean and Kentucky Warblers.

While development has encroached on much of the county’s agricultural land, the rural area west of the charming riverside town of Scottsville still offers great countryside birding. Stillfreds Pond offers the finest ducking in the county, with diverse flocks of both dabbling and diving ducks often found. Large flocks of geese can be at any body of water or field in the vicinity, and sometimes hold local rarities. Driving Langhorne and James River roads is a good way to find Northern Harriers and American Kestrels in the winter, as well as sparrows such as Savannah and White-crowned. When spring brings heavy rainstorms, any farm fields can hold impressive shorebird fallouts with rarities such as Black-bellied Plover, Long-billed Dowitcher, White-rumped and even Upland Sandpiper having been detected in recent years. Summer brings grassland nesters like Grasshopper Sparrow and occasionally Dickcissel to the fields, and it’s always worth a drive down to the James River at Warren Ferry to look for Yellow-throated and Prothonotary Warblers. East of Scottsville, the pine plantations in the Woodridge area provide habitat for several regionally unique species like Northern Bobwhite, Brown-headed Nuthatch and Black-billed Cuckoo. Nighttime birding in this area can be quite productive, sometimes with dozens of Eastern Whip-poor-wills, Chuck-wills Widows, and American Woodcocks calling out.

Albemarle county has reports of some 300 species, with 273 documented in eBird. Rarities of statewide notability include Limpkin, Swallow-tailed Kite, Snowy Owl, Burrowing Owl, Western Kingbird, Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, the state’s first Violet-green Swallow, Northern Wheatear, Western Tanager, Black-headed Grosbeak, and Painted Bunting. The long list of notable regional records includes Greater White-fronted and Ross’s Geese, Brant, Trumpeter Swan, Eurasian Wigeon, Surf, White-winged, and Black Scoters, King and Clapper Rails, Sandhill Crane, Common Gallinule, American Avocet, Marbled Godwit, Sanderling, White-rumped and Buff-breasted Sandpipers, Long-billed Dowitcher, Red-necked Phalarope, Willet, Black Skimmer, Anhinga, Brown Pelican, Cattle Egret, Golden Eagle, Mississippi Kite, Rough-legged Hawk, Long-eared Owl, Loggerhead Shrike, Sedge Wren, Evening Grosbeak, Common Redpoll, Red and White-winged Crossbills, Lapland Longspur, Snow Bunting, Clay-colored, Lark, LeConte’s and Nelson’s Sparrows, and Swainson’s Warbler. There are also records of Red-cockaded Woodpecker, Bewick’s Wren, Henslow’s and Bachman’s Sparrows, all now extirpated from the region.

—Baxter Beamer

Hotspots

Stakeout Hotspots

The following hotspots should only be used to input historical records pertaining to a specific staked out rarity, as indicated in the hotspots names.

• stakeout Swallow-tailed Kite, Berkmar Drive (2022)

• stakeout Swallow-tailed Kite, Johnson Purvis Lane (2022)

• stakeout Western Tanager, Guilford Lane (2020)