IBA Program | Mass Audubon

Massachusetts Important Bird Areas

IBA Criteria Category 2

Sites regularly holding significant numbers of species of high conservation priority in Massachusetts.

Sites that regularly support significant breeding or nonbreeding densities of the following species identified as high conservation priorities by Partners in Flight (excluding state-listed species already mentioned above). Thresholds will vary but may include sites with 25 or more breeding pairs, 5% or more of the state population (if known), or the two to three sites in the state containing the highest regularly occurring numbers. May also include sites with significant complements of species.

High conservation priority species

Species were chosen for the following reasons:

They are of conservation concern throughout their range and show high vulnerability in a number of factors.
They are of moderate continental priority but are important to consider for conservation within a region.
They are on the U.S. National Watch List.

These are species that score high enough on global criteria to warrant conservation attention wherever they occur. Included in these lists are songbirds that have a significant proportion of their total population within Massachusetts and shorebirds that occur in Massachusetts during the breeding season or in migration that have been identified as high conservation priority based on National Shorebird prioritization ranking.

Snowy Egret	Hairy Woodpecker	Blackburnian Warbler
Black-crowned Night Heron	Eastern Wood Pewee	Prairie Warbler
American Black Duck	Olive-sided Flycatcher	Black-and-white Warbler
Broad-winged Hawk	Alder Flycatcher	American Redstart
American Kestrel	Least Flycatcher	Worm-eating Warbler
Northern Bobwhite	Eastern Phoebe	Louisiana Waterthrush
American Oystercatcher	Great Crested Flycatcher	Canada Warbler
Willet	Eastern Kingbird	Indigo Bunting
Solitary Sandpiper	Cliff Swallow	Scarlet Tanager
Whimbrel	Veery	Eastern Towhee
Hudsonian Godwit	Bicknell's Thrush	Field Sparrow
Ruddy Turnstone	Swainson's Thrush	Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow
Red Knot	Wood Thrush	Seaside Sparrow
Sanderling	Gray Catbird	White-throated Sparrow
Short-billed Dowitcher	Brown Thrasher	Rose-breasted Grosbeak
American Woodcock	Blue-winged Warbler	Bobolink
Black-billed Cuckoo	Chestnut-sided Warbler	Eastern Meadowlark
Common Nighthawk	Black-throated Blue Warbler	Baltimore Oriole
Whip-poor-will	Cerulean Warbler	Purple Finch
Chimney Swift	Black-throated Green Warbler

*Species with more than 1% of their entire breeding population within Massachusetts.

Wood Thrush*	Eastern Phoebe*	Scarlet Tanager*
Gray Catbird*	Blue-winged Warbler*	Baltimore Oriole *

For more information on state and national population trends or these species, go to the Breeding Bird Survey Data.

| View Criteria Category (1), (2), (3), (4), (5) | Criteria Intro |