Another milestone has been reached as part of a project to improve habitat for the threatened turquoise parrot in the Warby Ranges, with the 200th nest box installed at an orchard last week.
The specially designed nest boxes provide nesting hollows for the turquoise parrot whose numbers have been affected by the loss of natural hollows due to past clearing of native vegetation.
Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority (CMA) Conservation Management Network (CMN) Co-ordinator Janice Mentiplay-Smith said the Broken Boosey CMN and Chris Tzaros from Birds, Bush and Beyond had initiated the project to address the lack of nesting hollows.
“For almost three years we have been working with landholders, schools, wineries, golf clubs and other local organisations to build and install nest boxes on suitable sites on private and public land,” Ms Mentiplay-Smith said.
“The project has also involved revegetating 80 ha, constructing 4km of fencing to protect remnant vegetation and running field days and other activities to inform the local community about this special little parrot that’s found in their neighbourhood.”
Monitoring last spring showed turquoise parrots nesting and raising chicks in a number of the nest boxes.
“It is hoped that with more nest boxes out there, more connected vegetation, and greater awareness in the community about the needs of the turquoise parrot – and the ways landholders can accommodate them by making small changes in the way the manage their properties – that turquoise parrot numbers will not dwindle to the alarmingly low numbers that are the plight of so many other native woodland bird species.”
This year the project received funding through the Victorian Government’s Threatened Species Protection Initiative - Community Action Grants program.
For further information about the project, or to get involved, contact Janice Mentiplay-Smith on 5764 7506 or janicem@gbcma.vic.gov.au