SOUTH CAROLINA'S IMPORTANT BIRD AREAS PROGRAM

Audubon South Carolina's Important Bird Areas Program has identified seventeen sites as Important Bird Areas. Twenty-one additional sites are in the nomination process. The seventeen identified IBAs comprise 651,000 acres and represent most of South Carolina's major habitat types, from the southern Appalachian Mountains to the Atlantic coast. Fourteen of these Important Bird Areas are open to, and encourage, public visitation. The IBA program is preparing a booklet describing the IBA sites, and pages will be added as additional areas are identified. Audubon South Carolina's Important Bird Areas Program is motivated by an IBA coordinator and a working technical committee of eight.

image courtesy National Park Service

FEATURED IMPORTANT BIRD AREA
Name: Congaree Swamp National Monument
State: South Carolina
County: Richland County
Nearest Community: Columbia

Site Description: Congaree Swamp National Monument, designated as a unit of the National Park System in 1976, is located approximately 20 miles southeast of Columbia, in central South Carolina-the geographic center is 80º 47' W, and 33º 47' N. This IBA comprises 12,000 acres of old-growth riverbottom hardwood forest and an additional 10,000 forested acres which together contain nearly 90 tree species, with twenty-five trees holding state records for size, and three trees with national records. Much of the area is seasonally, inundated by the Congaree River and features several oxbow lakes and numerous creeks distributed throughout the floodplain.

Ornithological Summary: The Congaree Important Bird Area has the largest remaining old-growth bottomland forest in the country. In this representative habitat, research has documented one of the densest breeding populations of Northern Parulas and more than half of the breeding species at Congaree are neotropical migrants. The 1995 bird checklist included 173 species. A winter bird census documented over 2,000 birds per 250 acres, one of the highest wintering bird densities reported in the country. One group of endangered Red-cockaded Woodpeckers occupies an upland pine bluff adjacent to the floodplain.

Conservation Issues: Water impoundment projects, upstream development activities, and potential sources of pollution in upstream watersheds pose the most serious threats to the health of the Congaree ecosystem. Urban and agricultural development in the vast watershed (over 8,000 square miles) brings with it a potential for surface water contamination within this Important Bird Area. Non-indigenous plants and naturally occurring pests and disease also pose threats.

To Learn More About Audubon South Carolina's
Important Bird Areas Program

Contact:
Paul Koehler
Important Bird Areas Coordinator
Audubon South Carolina
4542 Silver Bluff Rd
Jackson, SC 29831
(803)827-0781
pkoehler@audubon.org