All the nestlings are doing well and growing fast. They all have feathers, the white-throated tree creeper chick, the two sets of crimson rosella chicks (2 & 3), and the three kookaburra chicks.
Guess who popped out of our wood duck nest box this Wednesday? Eight gorgeous little wood ducklings! Unfortunately we personally missed all the action, but the wildlife cameras did their job well. All fingers and toes are crossed that they stay safe from foxes, feral and domestic free ranging cats, predatory native birds and more.
Since last post, we have two more nest boxes in use. The third crimson rosella box that was raided by a sugar glider, which I moved to a safer location has since had 6 small speckled eggs laid and the eastern rosella mum is now sitting. She is incredibly shy, and stays well out of sight so no photos of her I’m sorry. I’ve seen her head pop up just the once. There are no trees nearby for a wildlife camera to be installed to watch from a distance unfortunately, part of my glider protection strategy that looks to have been successful. There are also the above and below box polycarbonate plastic possum tree guards installed. The second box newly in use has a crimson rosella sitting on eggs.
The kookaburra parents fed their babies a juvenile eastern brown snake a couple of weeks ago. The snake was thoroughly dead after being thwacked repeatedly against several tree branches for a good 20 minutes. They are eating all sorts including centipedes, mice, lots of beetles, curl grubs, skinks (lizards) ++ lots of unidentifiables.
The sugar glider boxes are being well loved too.
Of our occupied nest boxes, 4 nest boxes are in use by two different rosella species, there is the tree creeper family, the now vacant wood duck box, three boxes occupied by ringtail possums, two boxes with sugar glider residents and the kookaburra nest box family. That’s a lot to be happy about!
We’ve installed at least 20 nest boxes around our regenerating woodland property over the past three years, just outside of Canberra.
Our tree creeper family is doing well. Three eggs were laid but only one hatched. The chick is fully feathered now, and the parents are both off the nest during the warm parts of the day fetching food for their gaping-beaked youngster.
I quickly poked my head in a couple of weeks ago, then took a quick peek today.
The possum protection on the tree above and below the nest box (the below-box guard was not yet installed in the whole tree photo), and on all sides of the nest box except the front where the tree creepers climb up, and a lock on the lid to stop it from being opened appears to be doing the job keeping this little family safe.
I don’t have a wildlife camera on this box as I installed it where there is plenty of cover to keep the tree creeper parents safe from day time predators. Too many dangling leaves and waving branches in a slight breeze for an SD card to last more than a couple of days, and I’d certainly not want to visit that frequently and risk disturbing them or drawing attention to the nest – predator birds.
Our two nesting crimson rosella families are doing very well. One family has three chicks probably hatched last weekend, and the other has two almost feathered chicks clearly hatched quite a while ago! The young chick family started with 5 eggs, the older chick family started with 6 eggs. I’ve stayed well clear of the area for the past two weeks, however I took a quick peek as it’s important for me to know if my strategies are resulting in nesting success.
One nest box has no nearby trees, so a wildlife camera to watch any action is not possible. I have a wildlife camera on the three chick nest box. Did you know that previous year siblings help with keeping the nest-sitter fed? I didn’t! It looks like a juvenile diligently feeds the nest-sitter ever morning – and gets grouched at sometimes too. The adult mate comes later and calls the sitter off for brunch/lunch, and then a gain mid-afternoon.
So we are finally having success with parrots nesting in boxes, after trying for three nesting seasons. The first year, I only had a 2m high A-frame ladder and the nest boxes probably weren’t considered high enough by the parrots. I know this is a thing.
The second year, I purchased a very long ladder and shifted all the boxes to ~ 5m high positions up trees. All five of the small to medium parrot sized boxes had an egg laid in each in quick succession by (I think) all Crimson Rosellas, and within a day or few the nest boxes were raided and eggs eaten. No parrots successfully nested in any nest box last year.
I didn’t know then about the numerous brushtail possums on our property, that had been soft-released by Wildcare over many years, and that they like eating eggs, nestlings and adult birds. I estimate there are ~20 on our 5 acre property after seeing 2-3 in a single frame on my different wildlife cameras located across the property, and also from walking around and counting them on warm summer nights. I didn’t know to put possum protection on all nest box tree else they would be raided, except for one duck box that was raided the first year.
This year before nesting season I installed 1m wide thick plastic guards above and below all nest boxes to prevent raiding and occupation by brushtails, and occupation by ringtails. All of the small-medium sized parrot nest boxes that had brushtails or ringtails using them at some point in the past year did not get any interest from nesting parrots. Three new, clean smelling nest boxes had eggs laid, one was raided by a sugar glider and was abandoned, and the other two are the ones with chicks now in them.
This box was raided the evening before, the possum guards are too far apart and don’t protect fully against Sugar Gliders crossing from the close nearby tree.
Some of our duck nest boxes were raided this year by crows, so I’ve begun to paint all the nest boxes in woodland bark colours. From many years of birdwatching I know that the survival of a nest depends strongly on it being not noticed by predators. Camouflage is vital part of this. Since the sugar glider raid, I have been quite heavy handed with installing anti-possum guards on some of the nest boxes with eggs laid now that I have discovered that sugar gliders love to eat eggs, as well as do the brushtail possums. The possum guards look to be working so far.
I will do lots of experimentation once nesting season is over, with possum protection of trees & nest boxes, nest box placements, and with many wildlife cameras watching the antics of our probably dozens of resident sugar gliders trying to gain access to the nest boxes. Wood duck, kookaburra and white throated tree creeper nest box updates coming in the next few weeks…
It’s no wonder the nest boxes installed as ‘environmental offsets’ in place of cleared habitat trees, intended for endangered species such as orange-bellied parrots, are found to be not used by the intended species. There is much more to encouraging the use, and also ensuring the success of any nesting efforts, of a nest box by a fussy target species that is vulnerable to predation, than just sticking a nest box up a tree and walking away.
Our Kookaburra family are looking quite frazzled fetching food for their 3 newly hatched and very demanding chicks. Aren’t they cute!! They raised two chicks successfully last year in the same box. Apparently this common species is in decline in our region, the reason is unknown. They do need larger hollows for nesting, which are scarce and in high demand!
Last week the White-throated Treecreepers laid 2 eggs in their box and have been sitting since Wednesday. In between I added possum protection to their box & tree.
Our 6-egg Crimson Rosella family are still sitting. The second Rosella box had two more eggs laid, they are sitting on 3 eggs (at least). In between the egg laying for the 3-egg family, I added much possum-protection on the box & tree & trimmed nearby small tree branches. Even gliders should find it tricky to access this box!
The 6-egg Rosella family were already sitting so couldn’t be disturbed with the installation of any additional possum protection. The Rosella box that was raided has been abandoned. However, we are doing better than last year with all 5 Crimson Rosella attempts to nest in nestboxes having the eggs raided and nests abandoned.
The Wood Duck nest is unknown but not raided – no eggs or feathers on the ground. They are quick to take fright & abandon nests so I am staying away.
Despite scrubbing out the possum’ed boxes, there has been no interest in these. But it may be too late in the season for nesting hollow discovery. Many plans for next year to increase the uptake of nest boxes and prevent them from being raided, but five bird families nesting that wouldn’t have if no boxes, is something to be happy about!
A happy, then sad, and now hopefully happy story about ducks and gardening with nest boxes. So last Christmas I bought lots of different nest boxes and put them up around our new bush home. Then I scooted off to work in the Central Desert region for many months, meanwhile my husband has been getting pretty friendly with the local wood ducks. On my first day home a week ago, I poked my nose into all the nest boxes, and found a ringtail possum in the glider box, and a brush tail possum in the black cockatoo/wood duck box. Cool, I thought.
Then a few days later I saw a wood duck disappearing into the wood duck box for a short while, then she flew away. I poked my nose back inside the box later that day, and alas discovered one partly chewed duck egg, and just the remains of one other.
Likely a brush tail possum’s entree me thinks, no chance Mrs Wood would be back after destruction of her eggs. So I heaved the massive box down and put it on our porch for a day, pondering a plan B.
The following morning I hear Mrs Wood’s Waaaark wak wak wak and felt sad, thinking she’d discovered the nest box gone. Later that morning after the rain stopped, I looked inside the nest box on our back porch for some reason?? and discovered a new duck egg!! She’d seen the nest box on our back porch, walked over and sat in it, and laid that egg.
Onto Google I immediately went, in search of ideas for possum barriers for trees, then hightailed it to Bunnings for some thick polycarbonate plastic. Rigged up two possum tree guards (above and below) late that afternoon and heaved the nest box back up the tree, together with a couple of wildlife camera traps to catch any possum or duck action, and crossed my fingers for the next day. Would she? Surely not!
Well she did! (isn’t that quite incredible?) There are now two duck eggs in the wood duck box, and she’s visited the box twice today according to my wildlife camera. All my fingers and toes are crossed that everything goes well for Mrs Wood and her eggs, it would be lovely to see ducklings soon. Goes to show that wildlife and people can work together 🙂
Ah, no wonder we don’t see snakes at ours often! Nom nom…
I really don’t think the Kooka bubs had any chance of eating a snake that would be over 2 x their body mass, or that they have strong enough claws & beaks to break it up into swallowable chunks. But it’s the thought that counts right?
