Thinking OWLtside the Box

There’s been lots of talk and media about ‘owl boxes’ in the City of Swan lately. It makes out that we just ‘make more owl boxes and get more owls’, which is simply not true, but typical of the simplified view humans have of our often complex ecosystems.

Importantly, there is no such THING as an ‘owl box’, only one SUITABLE for owls; of course there is never a guarantee any particular target species will use any nest-box. Whether or not it does depends on much more than using a design (dimensions + orientation) known to have been used by certain owl species in the past (such as those featured in my book ‘Hollowed Out?’).

Of greater importance is the fact that owls live in territorial pairs that occupy and defend spaces (territories) of a fairly consistent size and shape, and knowledge of existing territories and the hollows within them is vital to inform actions aimed at ‘increasing owl populations’. Territories are established on the basis of prey abundance and habitat to support a minimum threshold of prey; this fact means there is a maximum density of owls that any landscape can possibly support. Adding more artificial hollows without using data on the density of natural tree hollows, and the occupancy of such hollows by the range of species (including owls) already using them, to inform their placement, could well lead to no boxes being used by the target species at all.

Indeed, the science supports this. In a 2015 Perth metro area study that involved placing nest-boxes at sites where Boobook Owls were not initially detected during nocturnal aural surveys, to see if a new habitat feature would result in subsequent owl detection, only 1 of 15 nest-boxes installed  was used by Boobooks 3 years post-installation (Lohr 2019). It was possible in this study that boobooks already had suitable hollows in areas of placement, so had no need for surplus ones, or that the rodenticide highlighted as a conservation issue was killing owls in in ‘ecological sinks’, thus reducing probability of box uptake.

Our approach at ReCycOlogy is to carry out a tree hollow assessment prior to the installation of any artificial hollow, to see if suitable natural ones exist beforehand. If they do, we simply recommend focussing on the monitoring of those natural hollows for fauna use first. If not, then we make recommendations on installing a range of different nest-box designs (none named after a single species or species group!), taking into consideration the home range size of various local fauna and the density those species are known to nest at in natural sites. This approach has led to a number of nest-boxes being successfully used by Boobook and Barn Owls, as shown in these photos, but it has taken quite a bit of ground work, before we take to the trees!

 

To help our nocturnal predators, addressing the secondary poisoning issue certainly needs to be a priority at all levels of government. But embarking on ‘owl box’ projects not informed by science or ecological professionals may lead to ‘owl-less’ boxes being destroyed by super-abundant Galahs and corellas, or clogged with feral bee hives.

 

Baudin's Breed in Boxes!

It was a sheer THRILL today to confirm the first known record of the Critically Endangered Ngolak / Baudin's Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus baudinii) breeding successfully in an artificial tree-hollow! And it was even more of a delight to know these precious birds chose one of our our nest-boxes, made from recycled materials and based on a design that is over 20 years old! You can read more about this and see a video celebrating the discovery on our Instagram page, as well as see Simon's video filmed during the discovery here.

Ngolyenok Nestcam!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Re-Cyc-Ology Project (@the_recycology_project)

 We've been THRILLED to successfully record the behaviour of a pair of Ngolyenok / Carnaby's Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus latirostris) using one of our nest-boxes in the Perth Hills recently. Check out the above video of the adult male feeding then preening his adorable nestling! More videos are available on our Instagram feed :)

ABC TV - How to build a nest-box

THANKS to ABCTV and Wild Pacific Media's recent (and truly amazing!) wildlife documentary Australia's Wild Odyssey, we were privileged to be able to appear in this 'how to' video!

Hollowed Out? book - launched!

Hi folks, Simon here!

After nearly 10 months of late nights assembling such a huge jigsaw puzzle that is a 300+ page book with over 500 colour photographs, it was an AMAZING feeling today to launch 'Hollowed Out?' today! One of the highlights was having such a warm group of friends, family and mentors attend today's official launch ceremony hosted by the Shire of Mundaring Libraries at the Mundaring Arena. I am super grateful to all those people who attended, the Shire staff who worked so hard to make this event happen, the event sponsors MBC Trees and of course all of YOU who supported the original pre-sale campaign that brought the final hard-copy books to fruition!

So, where to now? Feel free to read more about the book launch below, or the subsequent author talk, or visit our new 'The Book' tab to order your copy online now!

 

"Hollowed Out?" book - Coming Soon!!

We're THRILLed to announce that after many, many years in the making, Simon's Nest-box/Tree-hollow book is very close to completion! "Hollowed Out?" is a story about the journey hollow-dependent fauna living in south-west Western Australia have endured, and how nest-boxes not only help these important animals survive, but foster custodianship for them into the future. It contains a wealth of information about habitat trees, the hollows they form, how human activities have impacted and continue to impact these precious natural resources, and, most importantly, the most up-to-date designs for a range of wildlife nest-boxes you can build in your backyard!

Click here to order your copy now!

We had hoped to time the launch of this book with Simon's appearance on the ABC TV programme Gardening Australia, which aired on Friday 22nd October as part of National Bird Week (you can watch this story, named 'Bird Box', by clicking here). But as often happens with creative projects, a few delays emerged! But now the book is available for purchase via the PRE-SALE crowdfund!.

After the initial launch of a paperback book, "Hollowed Out?" will be launched as an e-Book, to allow a fast, green way of getting it out there.

Follow us on Instagram for the latest news and updates on the book's launch!

Why Did the Possum Cross the Road?

Is that a very white powerline, or a funny piece of rope hung across the road?? You can keep guessing but we could also kill the suspense now...

A female Koomal or Common Brushtail Possum carrying her joey :-)

The funny bridge strung across Beeliar Drive is designed for this animal, the beautiful Koomal or Common Brushtail Possum (Trichosurus vulpecula). Recent surveys carried out in two local reserves revealed possums were present in one (Lake Kogolup), but not in the other (Yangebup Reserve). The fragmentation of wildlife habitat is one of the key reasons preventing some animals, particularly tree-climbing mammals, from moving around the landscape. The City of Cockburn therefore designed and installed a special 'possum bridge' to allow these excellent climbers to move across the road, and hopefully expand their population northwards. In order to inspire the next generation about possums, other wildlife and environmental education in general, the City supported a Re-Cyc-Ology Workshop at a local primary school, Mater Christi. This aimed to construct and install nest-boxes suitable for possums to enhance the habitat value of native bushland at Yangebup Reserve. So, with recycled materials and enthusisam, we headed to Mater Christi this morning to inspire some more kids!

The beautiful grassed workspace above was located outside one of the school's classrooms, and it provided the perfect environment for groups to work on assembling each of the 6 boxes. Then, after a lick of paint and some great discussions about the importance of tree-hollows as habitat, we set off into Reserve to install the boxes. Each one was hung on the trees using our usual tree-friendly, wire and hosepipe method. You can just make out in the below photo the entrance hole that is located at the rear of the box (against the tree), which makes it perfectly suited to the target species.

We are already looking forward to seeing who moves in! :)

Rivercare + Recycology = love for Jarrah Creek

A Phascogale nest box with a view!

We are very excited to have just completed a Re-Cycl-Ology Nest Box building workshop at Sawyers Valley Primary School, thanks to our friends at the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions through their Community Rivercare Program! 

The Jarrah Creek wetland, spot Simmo and the little fella!

This workshop, the second to be carried out at this (very lucky!) Perth Hills school focused on enhancing habitat for wildlife using the school's local Jarrah Creek wetland as a corridor to move throughout the hills. 

Brush-tailed Phascogale photographed in Mundaring, WA

The main target species was the Wambenger or Brush-tailed Phascogale (Phascogale tapoatafa), a rare local mammal that has been recorded in the area previously.

After a fascinating and entertaining whole school presentation about the importance of tree hollows and biodiversity in South West WA, the student 'Green Team'-ers got busy with the construction of six nest boxes.

Noongar Seasons sign on the Heritage Trail funded by State NRM

The students at this school have been caring for the Jarrah Creek Wetland for many years.  The head of Jarrah Creek is located at the base of the school and the students recognise that this wetland would have been significant to the indigenous Noongar people of this area.  

The school has engaged in annual monitoring of these nest boxes and we were all thrilled to discover Wambenger scats in one of the phascogale nest boxes!  They have had successful Red-capped Parrot fledglings two years in a row and each year, Australian Wood Ducks use the box close to the wetland.

Australian Wood Duck female sitting on eggs

This nest box project will provide much needed habitat for wildlife in an area that is predominately regrowth vegetation and lacks natural tree hollows. 
It was a unique opportunity to link a Re-Cyc-Ology nest box workshop with the Community Rivercare Program as it was our intention to inspire and motivate the next generation to care for this beautiful little wetland for years to come!

West Morley Primary School

Two workshops in a row! After a wonderful day in Rockingham yesterday, we had the privilege of visiting West Morley Primary School today to install the boxes you can see above in trees around the school. It was so encouraging to spend time at a school that had invested so much energy into nature play, planting local native gardens, and valuing local wildlife! Thanks to Emma and all the teachers for making our visit so enjoyable!

Rockingham SHS

It was wonderful to see another happy bunch of enlightened and excited students who took part in a Re-Cyc-Ology workshop at Rockingham Senior High School today! The above photo shows the kids craning their necks at me as I installed their cockatoo nest-box. Thanks so much to Rachel Nixon for organising this workshop. Despite a few showery periods, we placed all 7 boxes in trees at the school, and had a great day!

Orange Grove Primary

When you find out a school has a resident population of Forest Red-tailed Black Cockatoos, and a 'peace garden' composed of native vegetation, you know the students are probably well ahead in terms of environmental education! It was a pleasure to work with Orange Grove Primary today for another workshop which focused on building cockatoo boxes to hopefully encourage breeding in the resident red-tails.

After a presentation to the whole school at their morning, assembly we began construction with students from the Year 5 class, who assembled 3 cockatoo boxes. These were installed in some fantastic tall eucalypts around the school, including a giant Rose Gum (Eucalyptus grandis) at the edge of the oval, as well as some beautiful native Marri (Corymbia calophylla) trees at the front of the school.

This project was funded by the local building company Boral, and coordinated by Conservation Volunteers Australia (thanks so much to Katie for all her hard work in organising the day!).

Hollis Park

Today a group of keen bird-boxers gathered at Hollis Park in the City of Fremantle to build some nest boxes for local parrot species (especially Australian Ringnecks, and hopefully not invasive Rainbow Lorikeets!). This former landfill site has seen a great deal of restoration works in the form of planting and rehabilitation by the local Friends of Hollis Park. The weather was very warm but a nice shady spot beneath some trees helped us brave the heat and humidity! We made 6 parrot boxes in total, with 3 being installed in Hollis Park and 3 at the nearby Clontarf Hill.
 

If anyone would like to provide feedback or observations of fauna seen inspecting the boxes, please post your comments below.

Bushfire Recovery

We have recently completed two nest-box workshops run in conjunction with the Mundaring Shire as part of their Bushfire Recovery Program. These workshops saw a happy bunch of fire-affected residents from Stoneville, Parkerville and Mount Helena learn a new set of skills in how to build and install nest boxes for their own backyard. All attendees got to take their own nest box home and we had some very positive feedback, suggesting everyone had a great time!

Attendees at the post-fire recovery nest box workshops had a great time.

Cockies at Canning River

Today we visited the Canning River Eco Education Centre and ran another nest box workshop as part of Nearer to Nature's school holiday program. You can read more about some exciting observations we made on Simon's blog here.

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!

Parkerville Primary

This morning we went to Parkerville Primary with a lot of excitement, Simon in particular, as this was Simon's school when he was young. What fun we had there! We got directed to the new library, past all the great little hidey holes and tunnels through the gardens and under bushes where the kids had their "nature play" area - what a fantastic space. In the library we ran our presentations on hollow-using animals and waste to the whole school. 

One thing that always amazes and inspires us in our work is the fantastic questions kids throw at us, and their great understanding of how things work when we throw questions back. Parkerville Primary students were no exception - what a great bunch! Although we could only do the building part of the workshop with one class, the presentations we gave inspired other classes to conduct a cleanup of the school, their cross country track, and a whole lot of other ideas on new ways to recycle their waste. 

While Mrs Boyd's class was putting together seven nest boxes (two Black-Cockatoo, two parrot and three possum), some of the younger classes came in to see what all the fuss was about. We got some of the older students to describe what they were doing and why, much to the interest of everyone. Once all the boxes were assembled it was time to paint, and what better place to do it than out on the lawn under a big marri tree.

Finally it was time to start hanging the possum and parrot boxes, although we had barely got the first one in a tree when the bell rang. Thanks to the students who stayed back after school to help! Due to windy conditions we could not hang the larger Black-Cockatoo boxes on the day of the workshop, but that just gave us an excuse to come back! Under the supervision of a number of classes, Simon put them up when the conditions were safer. There was much excitement to see how he was going to get them up into the tall marri trees in the school ground.

We would like to thank Leonie Boyd for organising the day and the staff and students at Parkerville Primary for making us feel so welcome. We would especially like to thank the students involved in the workshop for their lovely letters of thanks! If any of the students from the school want to tell us what has been using their we would love to hear from you! Please put your comments below.

Bull Creek PEAC

Back down the hill for another fun Re-Cyc-Ology day, this time to work with some PEAC (Primary Extension and Challenge program) kids who meet at Bull Creek Primary every fortnight. We started off the day talking about why we were building nest boxes for native wildlife and why they were mostly made out of recycled material. As usual this stimulated a lot of interesting discussion within the group about habitat conservation and waste.

Then it was outside and into making the boxes. This workshop was a little different from our usual school program as the nest boxes were not being put up at Bull Creek Primary. PEAC is made up of students from a number of different schools, so we made enough boxes for one to be taken back to each of the ten schools.

With everyone working in groups and only a little help from us we got the ten parrot boxes finished by lunchtime. After lunch it was painting time. The reason for painting the boxes is to give them an extra weather-proof coating (especially the cut edges), and so they blend more easily into the trees when they are hung, making them more attractive to the animals.

We would like to thank the PEAC coordinator Ellen Beemster for organising the day, and the kids for making it such a great day for us. If any of the students involved in the workshop or who have nest boxes at their school would like to let us know what is using their boxes, we would love to hear from you. Please write your comments below. 

Nearer to Nature - Canning River Eco Education Centre

Another school holidays and we are back to the Canning River Eco Education Centre to run a Re-Cyc-Ology workshop as part of the Nearer to Nature school holiday program. This time we had nine kids and some parent helpers to make parrot nest boxes for everyone to take home and hang at the end of the day. Unfortunately one girl was sick and couldn't make it, but she did not totally miss out, we sent a nest box kit home with her brother for her to make when she felt better. 

There was lots of busy action out on the CREEC verandah while we got to work. We only had a few hours to get the boxes finished before parents returned. This meant that they could not be painted, but we sent them home with an information sheet on how to finish off their boxes and get them ready for hanging.

We would love to hear from any of the kids who came to the workshop. Put a comment below on what the workshop was like and if anything is in your box yet!

Thanks to the Nearer to Nature team, particularly Jill Francis and Berdina Ballast, for organising the workshop, and the Canning River Eco Education Centre for letting us use their facilities. Also a particularly big thank you to Mel and volunteer Carolyn for helping us out on the day.

Helena College

"A twenty metre nest-box-installing climb into the vibrant crown of this giant, wonderful, incredible, colossal, ancient (200+ yr-old) Marri tree, which glowed in the afternoon sun and tempted me (Simon) up there like a cave full of glistening jewels, was the highlight of my day. And possibly year. We only met last week but we are now best of friends. Her arms cradled me with all the gentle care in the world, and the view she offered me (I could see Mt Dale 50km away!) was immense. To think that if she could talk, this tree would whisper tales of witnessing countless Nyoongar ceremonies, then one day seeing the first party of white explorers following the Helena River into the Darling Scarp, CHANGES THE GRAIN of the human mind."

 

This was one of eight beautiful Eucalypt trees Simon had the privilege of climbing to install nest boxes for Black Cockatoos at Helena College, made by students at the school as part of a community services project. The students were able to salvage demolition timber and plywood to apply our 're-cyc-ology' train of thought to their boxes. We spent the first two afternoons of their ten-week project getting them started on how to build a nest box for Black-Cockatoos. They then spent the rest of the term building their own and had completed ten boxes by the end - such a great effort, and wonderful idea for a community services project!! 

The eight boxes Simon has installed have a good chance of being used by cockies as just down the road in a private garden, several boxes are currently being used by both Red-tailed and Carnaby's Black-Cockatoos.

Our enormous thanks go to Margaret Hogan and Kate Abbott for asking us to assist with the project, and the school handymen Jason and Jason for their help providing guidance to the students during construction, and helping Simon with installation too.

 

Here's a cutting from the local Hills Gazette showing one of the boxes ready to be hoisted up!