A major and long term impact of the 2019-2020 bushfires was the loss of hollow bearing trees that provide critical habitat for many native birds and animals. In response, nest boxes have been extensively used through fire affected landscapes to replace these essential nesting hollows.
In May this year, a very enthusiastic group of CHRL volunteers, in one morning, constructed 60 nest boxes from ready-made flat packs. Dave Wood then spent many more hours spray painting the boxes to improve their durability. Thank you to all who helped out. Different species have been catered for with specifically designed boxes for both ring & brush tail possums, microbats, sugar gliders, kookaburras, kingfishers, rosellas and powerful owls. The nest boxes were installed by qualified arborists, Harbour Arbor in late August 2021 across 10 fire impacted properties around Nana Glen. We are hoping that they were put up in time to provide some homes for nesting birds this breeding season.
Demonstration on nest box construction
Completed nest boxes being spray painted
World Wildlife Fund via Landcare NSW funded this project and is thanks to the generous WWF supporters who made this possible through gifts to the Australian Wildlife & Nature Recovery fund.
Arborist installing rosella box Photo: Harbour Arbor
Brush tail possum & ring tail possum boxes in same tree. Photo: Harbour Arbor
Nest box monitoring
Being able to monitor the installed nest boxes for bird and animal use will provide important information on how successful they are in attracting wildlife and how they are assisting biodiversity and wildlife post fire. Building on this the North Coast Regional Landcare Network, of which CHRL is a member, has embarked on a regional scale project to install more nest boxes, use innovative drilling techniques to create hollows within living tree trunks and conduct extensive monitoring of nest boxes and hollows installed across the North Coast. An ecologist will be engaged to review the monitoring data. The study will guide the future use of nest boxes including planning, installing and monitoring. As part of this project, CHRL has been provided with a wireless camera that can be fitted onto a 9m extension pole so we can go out and collect date from our installed nest boxes. We also plan to trial the drilling technique of creating hollows in live trees. It will be very exciting to see which of our boxes is being used as a new home and by whom. Stay tuned for the outcome of our monitoring!
This Regional project is a Landcare Led Bushfire Recovery project which has been supported by the Australian Government’s Bushfire Recovery Program for Wildlife and their Habitat.
