Great Peninsula Conservancy

Great Peninsula Conservancy (GPC)’s mission is to protect natural habitats, rural landscapes, and open space lands on the Great Peninsula of west Puget Sound. Activities will take place on two Conservancy projects: Clear Creek Trail and Cowling Creek Forest Preserve – two urban conservation projects.

Kate Kulhman told us about GPC’s projects:

Clear Creek Discovery Play Days (DPDs) introduce children between 2 to 10 to the world of nature, using story time, a touch table, a craft or activity, and then an exploration walk on the trail. The May 21st DPD’s theme was birds. After story time and crafts (making toilet-paper roll tube binoculars, creating pictures with bird rubbing plates, and bird stamps) all participants went on a bird observation walk using the new children’s binoculars the CUB mini-grant helped to provide. During the walk, bird tallies were taken using the 16-species list and the new Clear Creek Trail bird list. When everyone returned, CUB kits were handed out and we explained the data collection procedure. Families were encouraged to take the kits home, collect data and send it in to Cornell Lab. All who participated received certificates of appreciation.

On May 28 and 29, GPC participated in Kitsap Harbor Festival on the Bremerton Boardwalk. We had a display explaining Celebrate Urban Birds and the steps for collecting data. We handed out over a hundred Celebrate Urban Bird kits and fliers advertising our upcoming Celebrate Urban Bird events–children pulled their parents into our booth to see what CUBs was all about! On June 4, GPC hosted a Celebrate Urban Bird event in partnership with Friends of Miller Bay, the Suquamish Tribe, WSU Master Gardeners and the Kitsap Audubon Society. Children participated in six craft activities, like making bird seed balls and backyard bird-feeders, planting sunflower seeds and making pine cone birds in bag bird nests. A 10 year-old birder and a Cornell Lab member led bird observation walks on the Cowling Creek Forest Preserve for participants, which were similar to our May 21st DPD trail walk, and our young old bird observation leader connected with the kids attending and generated a lot of excitement for collecting the CUB bird data. “So many birds are singing! They must love it here,” one of these participants shared with us later.
At all the events the CUB kits were a big hit with both children and adults; everyone really wanted to collect data and send it in to Cornell Lab!