A Special Spot for a Special Species

It was only a year ago when I scaled a Karri tree on my friend's property in the Porongurup Range and hoisted into position an artificial nest box, designed to replicate a vertically oriented tree hollow. This is the favoured nest site for three charismatic birds of south-west WA: the Black Cockatoos. In 2008 we recorded a pair of one of these birds, the Carnaby's Cockatoo, nesting in a natural tree hollow, so to increase the number of nest sites, we put up a nest box. The box became occupied the following season, doubling the number of nesting pairs. Last year we put up the second box and today I installed the third, bringing the number of potential cockatoo nest sites available to four.

Here's what I found when I arrived at the block yesterday and checked the box that was installed a year ago . . . . .


What's in the Box? from Simon Cherriman on Vimeo.