Bird club in Rockbridge County, Virginia, US
The Alleghany Highlands chapter of Virginia Master Naturalists will hold its third “bioblitz” on Sunday, May 3 at the Green Pastures Recreation Area in Longdale Furnace to take inventory of wildlife and wild plants at this historic site. One part of the annual effort is a bird walk in the morning, and Bird Club members are welcome to participate.
Green Pastures opened in 1940 as an outdoor haven for Black families during Jim Crow, with a lake, sand beach, hiking trails, picnic shelter, and bathhouse. It was desegregated in 1950 and remained open as Longdale Recreation Area until 2017, when the Forest Service closed it for lack of funding. The area reopened as Green Pastures again in 2021 as a satellite location of Douthat State Park under the stewardship of Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation and the Forest Service.
Green Pastures features a mix of habitats – early successional and mature forest, mountain stream, a manmade lake, open fields, and vacant buildings – attracting a rich diversity of birds. We’ve moved the bioblitz date back two weeks from past years with the hope that more of the breeding and migrating birds will be in the area in early May. In addition to warblers and thrushes, including Louisiana Waterthrush, we hope to sight vireos and Eastern Wood-pewees as they begin to arrive.
Birders are planning to meet at the parking area in Green Pastures at 9 am to walk several of the trails for approximately two hours. Folks can meet at the Tractor Supply at 8:15 am to carpool from there; the drive is about 30 minutes.