Twin Creeks is a 1200 ha community Conservation Reserve managed by the Friends of the Porongurup Range, and is set on a beautiful block of remnant vegetation just east of Mount Barker. Earlier this week I had the privilege of visiting this reserve to work with Birdlife Australia Project Coordinator and good friend Tegan Douglas and run a community education workshop about Black Cockatoo conservation, which involved building and installing two nest-boxes for cockatoos at Twin Creeks.
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| Cocky box construction is underway! |
It was wonderful to meet some local folk enthusiastic to help our unique birds, and see a couple more potential artificial nest-sites for our threatened cockatoos installed in relatively young trees that will not form natural hollows for at least another century.
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| Afternoon abour-work: the second cockatoo box is hoisted into position in a tall but thin Wandoo. |
After this workshop was complete, we headed on to my friend Jeff's block on the southern side of the Porongurup Range, to run a second educational workshop about the successful use of nest-boxes by Carnaby's Cockatoo. This workshop was supported by South Coast NRM and I am so grateful to Liz Tanner for her amazing work to make this happen! Liz and another lovely bunch of local bird-lovers turned up to hear the history of the cockatoo 'breeding population' which has grown in size during the past 10 years, and to assist with the installation of two new boxes. Cockatoos usually arrive to breed at this site in October and November, so it was great to see these additional sites in place with plenty of time to be discovered before the 2017 breeding season!
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| The second of two new cockatoo boxes in situ at Jeff's, each of which had an amazing view of the Karri forest! |
Down from the trees for a brief moment, it was time to head on to Albany for the next part of my down south week of outreach... but more on that later!
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