The ecoregion of the coastal plain of the mid-Atlantic US was originally primarily constituted by pine-dominated ecosystems so falls within the coniferous forests major habitat type. This ecoregion extends in the north to cover almost the entire Delmarva Peninsula, shared between Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. On the west side of Chesapeake Bay, it covers the extreme southeastern corner of Maryland, extending south along the shore to southeastern Virginia where it broadens out to cover the entire coastal plain. It continues south through North Carolina and South Carolina and finally covers a thin fringe of the coastal plain in northeastern Georgia, including Savannah.
Adjacent ecoregions: at its most northern end, at the base of the Delmarva Peninsula, this ecoregion abuts the Northeastern Coastal Forests (NA0411). Through Virginia and the Carolinas it is bordered to the west by the Southeastern Mixed Forests (NA0413) but in Georgia its neighbor to the west and south is the Southeastern Conifer Forests (NA0529).
Description of the Ecoregion
A detailed description of the ecoregion can be found at WWF’s site (the map above is a screen shot from that Wildfinder site). There may also be additional information to be found in this ecoregion’s page at Wikipedia.
Briefly, the ecoregion is characterized by… [under construction]
Birds of the Ecoregion
The avifauna of the ecoregion… [under construction].
Although no bird species are endemic to this ecoregion, the following are noteworthy as being quite characteristic of the ecoregion and relatively difficult to see in other ecoregions:
[list under construction]
Resources for the Ecoregion Birder
Without any pretense to completeness, the following resources have caught my attention and would be of value to the birder traveling to this ecoregion:
In Virginia, the ABA guide Birdfinding Guide (A Birder’s Guide to Virginia, David W. Johnson, compiler, 1997) covers about 14 major sites in this ecoregion. These include all of the sites listed there for the Eastern Shore and most of what they call the Coastal Plain sites (7f and 7g and all the sites to the southeast). The Great Dismal Swamp falls in this ecoregion in Virginia and North Carolina.
119 spp. (Aug. 1, 2014)