Red-breasted Nuthatch juvenile in the Quimper Wildlife Corridor by Wendy Feltham.
We’re pleased to announce that the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Land Trust Bird Conservation Initiative (LTBCI) recently awarded a grant of $50,000 to the “Listen Up Collaborative”. This latest grant expands a successful partnership between Great Peninsula Conservancy (GPC) and Jefferson Land Trust which is designed to support the long-term survival of Western Washington forest bird species, and to help us improve forest environments for wildlife survival and habitat resilience over the long term.
Great Peninsula Conservancy staff training Jefferson Land Trust staff on the use of Audiomoth recording devices at one of our preserves in 2023.
The partnership between GPC and Jefferson Land Trust began with a smaller grant from LTBCI in 2022, with continued support from LTBCI in 2023. In 2024, we expanded the partnership by forming the “Listen Up Collaborative” program. In this new regional partnership with several other local organizations, we’re working together to enhance habitat for bird and wildlife conservation and climate resilience in Western Washington.
The Collaborative consists of Jefferson Land Trust, GPC, Northwest Natural Resource Group, Bainbridge Island Land Trust (BILT), the Point No Point Treaty Council, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, and Kitsap County Parks. In the future, we hope to welcome new partners to this collaboration.
Our goals with this project are to improve the long-term survival of birds and strengthen the climate resilience of our forests and wildlife habitat by implementing targeted habitat improvements across 1,389 acres on 39 preserves managed by Jefferson Land Trust, BILT, and GPC.
Acoustic monitoring will help us track how bird populations respond to these stewardship actions, giving us valuable insights into what’s working. And we’re committed to sharing what we learn — along with practical, replicable strategies — with our partners in the Collaborative and the broader conservation community.
“The Collaborative partners all bring different perspectives and expertise to the table,” says Carrie Clendaniel, Jefferson Land Trust’s Preserve Manager. “For example, there are a variety of land managers in the Collaborative, who can information-share and implement similar ecological forest management practices across the lands we’re responsible for. Meanwhile, other partners are sharing data about forest bird use that they’ve gathered from other wildlife monitoring projects in the region.”
Land Trust Field Assistant Greg Sachs installing an Audiomoth birdsong recording device at a Land Trust preserve this past spring.
The Cornell grant will provide vital support to grow this exciting collaboration, enabling GPC, BILT, and Jefferson Land Trust to continue important land stewardship work on the preserves we each manage. It will also help us carry out our shared bird audio monitoring project across these sites, giving us valuable insights to guide future land management decisions.
“Our forest management activities are designed to make our forests more complex and healthy over time,” explains Carrie. “Using recording devices to track certain indicator bird species that require these more complex habitats helps us understand if our activities are succeeding in creating the habitat conditions that birds and other local wildlife need to thrive, and positioning them for long-term success and survival.”
This year, for the third year in a row, Jefferson Land Trust is continuing the audio recording project on our preserves. In the spring (mating season, when birds are especially verbal, and migratory birds are returning to the region), our stewardship field team installs AudioMoth bird recording devices in strategic areas on our nature preserves, returning to collect them after a week.
Community volunteers play a critical role by helping us verify and analyze hundreds of hours of recorded birdsong using AudioMoth technology.
Red-breasted Sapsucker in a standing snag.
The forest management activities we undertake on our preserves include creating downed logs, downed log surrogates, and standing snags. These key features provide perching, nesting, and foraging habitat for birds and other wildlife.
In a healthy forest, downed woody debris on the forest floor serves a variety of smaller birds and wildlife by creating an environment for the insects they eat. Downed logs also aid forest health and resilience by acting as sponges, soaking up water during seasonal wet periods and releasing it during dry periods. Downed log surrogates (which typically consist of at least three small-diameter logs piled together strategically) mimic natural downed logs, providing nooks and crannies in which small birds and other wildlife can forage, nest, and shelter. Standing snags offer birds of prey — which play an important role in forest ecosystems — perches from which to hunt.
2025 Youth Corps interns building surrogate nurse logs, a habitat feature that supports wildlife and overall forest health, at Valley View Forest.
For several years, with the support of amazing volunteers from our community, AmeriCorps service members, Youth Corps spring break interns, community donors and foundations, and many others, Jefferson Land Trust has worked to create these habitat structures on the lands we protect. We plan to continue these activities far into the future, informed by the data we gather through our audio recordings, our annual forest assessments, and the collective knowledge base of the Listen Up Collaborative.
“Active care of our forests and waterways is key to helping accelerate more complex conditions that wildlife need to thrive, particularly given that the surrounding landscapes may not be as healthy as that on our preserves, due to logging, residential use, or business activities,” says Carrie. “Our forests have been extensively manipulated and need our care to get them back to a more resilient condition with structural and species diversity in place.”
We’re grateful to the Cornell Lab and its Land Trust Bird Conservation Initiative for the foresight and support of this important conservation work; to the wonderful community volunteers who help us verify the recordings and complete structural diversity projects in our local forests; and to the members of the Listen Up Collaborative for their dedication to supporting birds, wildlife, and wildlife habitat in our region now and far into the future.
Would you like to support work like this? You can volunteer at work parties to create healthier habitats, or donate to support our work today. Thank you!
