Bird & Bat Boxes Built for The Bay

Pictured: Trevor Oxley (GGC Member & volunteer at Men’s Shed), Robert Vincekovic, Madelyne Hughes (Men’s Shed coordinator), Monina Gilbey & Tim Warren

Did you know that it can take 100-150 years for hollows to form in trees? Many native birds and animals use the hollows of trees for nesting and shelter. Bats use hollows to go into torpor (hibernate) and owls use hollows to roost during the day.

The removal of large native trees, or their limbs, means that tree hollows are hard for local fauna to find. While it is preferable for birds and animals to have natural hollows, nest boxes are used as an alternative habitat when there are no tree hollows.

The Camden Park Men’s Shed have made a variety of different nest boxes to trial at our course. Soon to be installed are an owl box, a rosella box and a microbat box.

As we have many water courses, we have lots of flying insects. Each microbat eats up to 1000 insects per night, so if they move in, they will help to keep our insect numbers down.

We haven’t managed to sort out the technology yet, but were are investigating cameras for real-time (and night-time) monitoring inside the nest boxes. We will update you if anyone takes up residence in any of the boxes.

Many thanks to the Camden Park Men’s Shed for their work in making the boxes, and Trevor Oxley for working with us to tailor the boxes to our requirements.

The volunteers at Camden Park Men’s Shed have been very busy and just built 100 bird boxes to be distributed around Kangaroo Island. If any Club Members want any boxes built, please contact Madelyne Hughes at the Centre on 0431711638.