Time to Check Nest Boxes

Posted on 15 April, 2013 by Connecting Country

If you have a Connecting Country nest box on your property (or one near-by on public land), Autumn is the time of year to check your boxes for Brush-tailed Phascogale or Sugar Glider activity.

The best technique for landholders to monitor the boxes on their property involves observing, counting and identifying the Sugar gliders or Brush-tailed Phascogales that climb out of the opening of each nest box on dusk. Please do NOT climb up with a ladder and physically check inside the box (due to the danger to you, and also the potential disturbance to the animal). We have further information on this ‘dusk observation’ technique (click here) and also the results from the past two years of nest box surveys (click here and here).

A standardised data sheet is available to record observations (PDF and Word versions). Results can be sent to us via email or post. Even if you see nothing come out of the box, please let us know, as this is still important information.

If you are unable to observe the nest boxes on your property at dusk – but would like to know what it using them – please let us know. We may be able to arrange for a volunteer team to come and observe them on dusk instead.