Private landowners, Mid-Atlantic
Tracked bobwhite quail survival after a brutal winter ice storm
Also maps turkey calling activity across the property
Limited season · Selective capacity
Know where key species are calling — and how to manage for them
Where are they? How are populations doing? What should you change on the ground? Acoustic listening turns calling into decisions — with the health of your land as the through-line.
We take a limited number of properties each listening season. Built for landowners, land managers, and agencies who need practical answers: where key birds are on the property, how populations are trending, and how to manage habitat with that data — not just detections. Typical fit: 100+ acres, public or private working lands.
Species insight
Actionable species insights for management
Continuous acoustic records turn calling activity into actionable insights — when key game and non-game birds are present, how activity shifts across the season, and where to focus habitat work so management effort actually lands.
- Northern Bobwhite
- Wild Turkey
- Ruffed Grouse
- And more
Hear bobwhite calls
Map covey and whistle calling for bobwhite — including survival and rebound signals after hard winters — so cover, food-plot, burn, roost, and access decisions land where activity actually concentrates.
The same listening network follows gobbling for wild turkey and drumming and calling for ruffed grouse — timing and location that help focus habitat work where birds actually use the property.
Hear a turkey gobble
Soundscape view
Broader biodiversity — actionable signals for habitat decisions
The same listening network that tracks management targets also reads the wider bird community. Long-term calling patterns reveal presence, absence, and change — actionable signals for habitat quality that occasional morning surveys can miss.
Indigo Bunting is a clear example: multi-year daily detections show seasonal calling peaks and year-to-year shifts — insight you can use to judge whether edge, shrub, and early-successional habitat is working beyond a single target species.
Photo: Tyler Savitski / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Management meaning
From sound to action on the ground
Detections alone are not a plan. We translate calling into actionable insights — where activity concentrates, how seasons compare, and what to do next on the ground.
Year-to-year context keeps you from over-reading a quiet season or missing a rebound. Comparing covey calling tops across seasons separates habitat signal from noise — so management decisions rest on real patterns, not a single bad week.
Why this method holds up
Scientific advantages of continuous acoustic monitoring — actionable insights so your management decisions rest on stronger evidence.
- Long-term continuous records — not a few mornings a year
- Eliminates observer bias from who walked which transect
- Reproducible methods you can compare across seasons and sites
- More sensitive than traditional surveys — published work detected bobwhite population changes as small as about ~12% with acoustics vs about ~26% for helicopter surveys
- AI detection + expert review — scale without skipping the science
Acoustic approach
~12%
Detected bobwhite population changes as small as about 12% in published work.
Helicopter surveys
~26%
Next-best option typically achieves a detection threshold around 26%.
That means acoustic monitoring can reveal meaningful population trends earlier, with substantially lower cost and disturbance than aerial surveys. Precision still depends on study design, habitat, and season — and results on any one property vary.
Selected examples
Results vary by property, season, habitat, and effort. Outcomes are not guaranteed.
Delaware Department of Fish & Wildlife
Bobwhite and songbird presence monitoring
Presence and activity baselines across public land units
Rolling Plains Quail Research Ranch
Bobwhite population change analyzed with greater precision than other methods used there
Longer listening windows reveal trends occasional surveys miss
How we will help you
We run the full listening season end to end — and turn it into actionable insights you can manage from:
- Site plan tailored to your habitat and goals
- ARU deployment across the property
- Season-long monitoring
- AI detection with expert review
- Property report with actionable insights you can act on
- 1:1 habitat consultation to turn findings into management next steps
What happens next?
- Submit this short fit form.
- We text or call if there’s a fit to schedule a consult.
- If we take the property, onboarding & monitoring kickoff.
Led by Dr. Luke Macaulay, Ph.D. — Extension Specialist at UC Berkeley and the University of Maryland, where he earned tenure, then went all-in on entrepreneurship building Land & Wildlife. Three years proving these methods on a ~1,000-acre working farm (research partnership).
Property fit form
All fields are required. Fit requests are reviewed personally. We only move forward with landowners, land managers, and agencies ready to invest in deployments starting at a minimum of $10,000 and prepared to start within 30 days — capacity is limited.
Request received
Thank you. We’ll text or call if there’s a fit to schedule a short consult. Capacity is limited, so not every property is accepted this season.
Questions in the meantime? luke@landwildlife.com