Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries Birding Trail celebrates 5th anniversary

2009 marks the fifth anniversary of the completion of the Virginia Birding and Wildlife Trail, the nation’s first statewide wildlife viewing trail, with more than 600 sites.  The Piedmont Phase (the last of the three regional phases including the Coastal and Mountain regions) was dedicated at Monticello in September 2004. Virginia has one of the highest diversities of birds in the eastern United States, with nearly 400 resident and migratory bird species. The state also boasts one of the highest diversities of all wildlife in the eastern United States, with over 3,000 species of fish, reptiles, amphibians, mussels, crayfish, birds, mammals, butterflies and dragonflies.