Photo: Canada Warbler, Dale Bonk/Audubon Photography Awards
Reston has over 800 acres of natural areas and other wildlife-friendly areas, including 55 miles of trails, on property owned by the Reston Association.
Claudia Thompson-Deahl; Photo: Sean Bahrami, Reston Association
Six of these areas, covering 400 acres, are now certified as Audubon at Home Wildlife Sanctuaries, thanks to the efforts of Reston Association Senior Environmental Resource Manager Claudia Thompson-Deahl, Chief Operating Officer Larry Butler and former Audubon at Home Co-Director Robin Duska. They include Bright Pond and Walker Nature Center and along the Glade West/Meadow trails, Glade East’s Turquoise Trail, Twin Branches Trail and Buttermilk Trail.
To obtain certification as an Audubon at Home Wildlife Sanctuary, a property owner is asked to sign the Healthy Yard Pledge, pledging to remove invasive non-native plants, reduce area covered by lawn, plant native plants, reduce pesticide and fertilizer use and conserve and protect water quality. Certification also requires providing several habitat features, such as native shrubs and trees, a water feature, or a rain garden or pollinator garden and observing at least 10 Sanctuary Species using the property.
Reston Association already manages its natural areas in line with the Healthy Yard Pledge, and Robin documented 60 different Sanctuary Species in the six sites. All of the sites are designated as “birding hotspots” in the Cornell University eBird database, and birders have observed between 91 and 134 bird species at each.
For example, Walker Nature Center’s woodland trails leading along Snakeden Stream Valley to Lake Audubon are a prime spot for seeing warblers. Twenty-eight warbler species, including the Canada Warbler recorded on the certification application, along with migratory birds and water birds have been observed there.
Especially during the pandemic, many Reston residents and others enjoy walking or biking the trails through these areas. Hopefully the new signs designating the areas as Wildlife Sanctuaries will help people appreciate how valuable these large, contiguous areas are as wildlife habitat, and encourage better stewardship by not littering or letting dogs run unleashed.
Robin used the citizen science tools eBird and the Reston Biodiversity project in iNaturalist to certify the sites based on finding species of 29 birds, 22 insects, 4 arachnids, 2 mammals, and 3 reptiles/amphibians. “All Restonians can help document diversity via these tools,” she notes, and you can too.
Are you interested in creating a Wildlife Sanctuary in your own backyard? If you live in Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William, Rappahannock or Fauquier, just click here to learn more about the program and request a free visit by an Audubon at Home Ambassador, who will advise on steps you can take to improve habitat for birds and other wildlife in your yard—and get it certified as a Wildlife Sanctuary.