Trayning Primary School

TRAYNING! Today we had some great fun visiting Trayning Primary School in the WA Wheatbelt and getting back into the swing of workshops, conducting our first one since February this year. We worked with a brilliant bunch of kids who were all so well mannered, and super keen to learn about Australian birds and tree hollows. They were very excited to have a few different designs to work on (bats, parrots, pardalotes and a cockatoo) and had a great time at the end of the day painting each box under the shade before we installed all 6 in some very pretty gum trees in the school grounds.

Thanks to Glen Buder from the Shire of Trayning/Nungarin for organising this workshop, and of course to the teachers and parents at Trayning Primary for having us attend the school. We know the kids had as much fun as we did!

Wandoo Prison

Last Monday we took our nest box workshop to yet another sector of the community - residents of the Wandoo Prison. We worked with 10 young blokes to engage them with the environment through constructing nest boxes for Endangered Black-Cockatoos. When the woodwork was underway and everyone had a good idea of how to build a cockatoo nest box, we stopped for morning tea and Gill and Simon gave a talk about the importance of tree hollows, and re-using waste material for nest boxes. Phil Digney then showed some live cockatoos to the young guys, demonstrating their placid nature and amazing feeding capabilities. Above is a picture of the team involved.

Today (a week and a hlaf later) we returned to the prison to find the residents had completed all 10 next boxes for which we provided materials, a fantastic outcome! Simon then installed one box in a tree inside the prison grounds, so the lads and staff at Wandoo are able to keep an eye on the box for birds showing interest. The location of this tree is only a few hundred metres from similar nest boxes in the Murdoch University grounds, which have had Red-tailed Black-Cockatoos successfully breeding since 2011. Fingers crossed that Wandoo's new box has similar luck!

Thanks to the staff at Wandoo Prison and Extra Edge Community Services for coordinating the event, and Phil Digney from Conservation Outcomes for including Re-Cyc-Ology in this fantastic event!