Silver Bluff Audubon Center and Sanctuary

Audubon’s Silver Bluff Sanctuary spans 3,400 acres along the Savannah River, with pine and hardwood forests, trails, lakes, ponds, grasslands—and abundant birds and wildlife. Beneath your feet lie archaeological sites from nearly every period of American history.

The land you can visit today has a long history of visitors, explorers, enslaved people, and native tribes. When Audubon acquired the land through a donation from Floyd Starr in 1975, Floyd had great concern over the plummeting populations of Northern Bobwhite quail. As a hunter he used the property for quail hunting and a retreat from his full time residence in Pennsylvania. With bird conservation in mind, the land was given to the National Audubon Society. Using land stewardship, science, and best management practices, Bobwhite whistles echo through the property once again. Silver Bluff serves as a living classroom, teaching private land owners how to manage their forests and land to benefit their goals, usage and bird habitat. 

Silver Bluff is being restored and managed to bring back a fire dominated landscape with grassland and Longleaf Pine savannas. These habitats house Northern Bobwhite, Eastern Meadowlarks, Bachman's Sparrows, and Swallow-tailed Kites to name a few.  Along the banks and lowlands of the Savannah River, Silver Bluff boasts managed bottom-land hardwood forests which have traditionally not been managed. With our bird-friendly forestry techniques Silver Bluff now is home to a dense population of Swainson's Warblers, a species that had previously vanished from the property. Our trails wind through these different habitat types giving visitors a soundscape of bird calls and diverse plant communities that support a variety of bird species.