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A ceremony celebrating the designation of the Pea Patch Island Heronry as a Continentally Important Bird Area (IBA) was held Saturday, April 27, 2002, at Battery Park in Delaware City.
Matt Del Pizzo, president of the Delaware Audubon Society, presented the "Important Bird Area" certificate to Clyde Shipman, Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) Parks and Recreation Manager of Operations.Participants had an opportunity to discover the Pea Patch Island Heronry by taking a walk along the Prison Camp Trail and visiting the Observation Deck. Interpretive staff were available to talk about the heronry and answer questions about the birds.
Saturday, April 27, was the opening day at Fort Delaware and the first chance of the season to ride over to the island and get a closer view of the Heronry. Now is a great time to visit the island to see the heronry because birds are now active in their nests and the island's healthy bug population is relatively low.
Pea Patch Island is one of the largest and most species diverse heronries on the East Coast, boasting nesting pairs of Great Blue Herons, Little Blue Herons, Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Cattle Egrets, Glossy Ibis, Black-crowned Night Herons, Yellow-crowned Night Herons Tri-colored Herons and Green Herons. For this reason, it was chosen to receive Important Bird Area status.
The Important Bird Areas Program is sponsored by the National Audubon Society and the American Bird Conservancy and seeks to identify sites with important bird populations and to encourage successful natural resource stewardship at those sites.
- National Audubon's IBA Site
- Cornell and NAS BirdSource
- NAS WatchList of Potentially Endangered Birds
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Last modified on April 20, 2002.
