Nest box monitoring 2021 is complete!
Posted on 19 July, 2021 by Jess
This year was a busy year for our nest boxes. Our autumn 2021 monitoring was conducted by a tenacious team of seven ladder-trained volunteers: Ann-Marie, Asha, Beth, Corey, Frances, Kerrie, and Kim. In addition, an amazing crew: Alyssa, Bev, Carla, Cate, Duncan, Euan, Greg, Helen B, Helen J, Herbz, Isis, Jacqui, Janet, Jen, Jenny, Jeremy, Jess, Kate, Mal, Matt, Nat, Paul, Rachel, Rob, Rosemary, Smiley and Xiao, did the hard yards in carrying ladders and taking notes in the field. Thanks also to Vicki, who has been a champion in the background, managing and collating incoming data into our database, and preparing and sending reports for landholders.
Together, this stellar team exceeded our goal of surveying 100 sites, and instead surveyed 116 sites – that’s 347 nest boxes! We are still carefully checking our data, but preliminary results indicate that we detected the brush-tailed phascogale in nine nest boxes, as well as phascogale nests or scats in an additional 100 nest boxes – on par with previous years of monitoring. We also detected sugar gliders (now also known as Krefft’s Glider) in 92 nest boxes, and glider nests in a further 112 nest boxes. This indicates that nest boxes in our region are being used widely used by native animals and are providing important habitat for hollow-dependent species.
Please see below a collection of happy snaps by our monitoring team – while they worked hard and in all sorts of conditions, it certainly seems like they had a good time!
Kim and Kerrie practice ‘footing’ a ladder. Photo by Jess Lawton
Nat and Carol measure a tree. Photo by Beth Mellick
Rachel measures a tree. Photo by Beth Mellick
Jeremy has been volunteering to survey nest boxes for many years! Photo by Beth Mellick
Max and Nat carry a ladder to a nest box site. Photo by Beth Mellick
Look at the size of this tree! Photo by Beth Mellick
Rob measures a tree. Photo by Kerrie Jennings
Jess records some data. Photo by Kerrie Jennings
Kerrie inspecting a nest box
Jeremy takes notes. Note the typical contents of a brush-tailed phascogale in a nest box. Photo: Kim Peric
Kerrie takes a break! Photo: supplied by Kerrie Jennings
Euan Jenny and Peter with a large tree. Photo by Beth Mellick
Kerrie finds old honeycomb in a nest box.
Mal measures the diameter of a nest box tree. Photo: Frances Howe
Paul Flood from Saftey Systems Pty Ltd provides training on safely securing a ladder to a tree. Photo by Jess Lawton
Frances prepares to inspect a box in 2021 while volunteering to check nest boxes on her weekends (photo by Jess Lawton)
Ann-Marie didn’t have time to remove her helmet between sites! Photo by Jess Lawton
Luna the sheepdog wanted to look for phascogales! Photo: Kerrie Jennings
Greg is ready for smoko! Photo by Kerrie Jennings
Nest box monitoring 2021 was conducted with support from Bank Australia and the Wettenhall Environment Trust. We really appreciate their valuable contribution to funding our Monitoring Coordinator, in-kind support for nest box surveys, and helping us keep our nest box volunteers safe and effective with training, equipment, and transport.
I want to thank my board of Trustees at Wettenhall Environment Trust who allow me to participate in the nest box monitoring as part of my role as Executive Director of the Trust. Having this time out in the field working with volunteers is invaluable experience. Thank you to all the volunteers who helped out, and to Jess for her time and patience with trouble-shooting problems (like the lock on the gate!!). Citizen science is so important for protecting nature and I’m proud to be a part of it.
Absolutely agree! A fantastic job done by a fantastic team! Congratulations to all who managed to achieve this and in between pandemic lockdowns, too! Congratulations to all involved!
Fantastic news! Well done team!