Carpenter Creek Birders continues a long-term bird monitoring program established in 2002 by Stillwaters Environmental Center, now a program of Great Peninsula Conservancy (GPC). This monthly survey started in 2002 with the question “Who lives here?”.  Stillwaters Environmental Center founders Joleen Palmer and Naomi Maasberg were curious and wanted to find out.  They were coordinating local Kingston efforts to improve conditions for migrating salmon by replacing the South Kingston Rd. and West Kingston Rd. blocking culverts with bridges.  With the bird survey they hoped to establish a baseline showing which birds used habitats in Carpenter Lake, the CC Estuary, and Appletree Cove, tracking changes over time.  Long-time KAS members Fay Linger and Nancy Ladenberger were enlisted to choose sites and do the initial observations.  Stillwaters volunteers joined them.  When Fay and Nancy were called away to lend their expertise elsewhere in Kitsap County, these volunteers continued their work for the next twenty years. After the recent restructuring of Stillwaters as a program of Great Peninsula Conservancy the bird monitoring team held discussions with GPC and Kitsap Audubon Society about continuing its work.  Those talks led to the decision to become an independent community birding group, Carpenter Creek Birders, focused primarily on continuing the long-term monitoring.