Successful Phascogale Nest Box Monitoring

Victoria monitoring the phascogales nest boxes

This year’s annual phascogale next box monitoring has been our most successful yet!

Out of the 8 boxes that are spread out across the Upper catchment 4 had phascogales present and an additional 3 boxes, that were vacant at the time of monitoring, contained phascogale scats. The phascogale nest boxes were assembled by the Wandering Primary School Students in 2018 and installed between 2018-2020 and annual monitoring has occurred in July ever since.

To conduct the monitoring, we use a custom-made pole camera to make sure we didn’t disturb any occupants. We are very quiet and conduct the monitoring in the late afternoon so that if the phascogales were to exit the box the sun would not be too bright, and it wouldn’t be too long before dark. We monitor the boxes annually in July, the early mating period for phascogales. Not only are we checking for the presence of phascogales we are also checking to see if the nest boxes require any maintenance and if there is the presence of pest animals including feral bees and rats. If the box is empty, we clean it out and freshen up the sheep wool nesting material.

Both red-tail and brush tail phascogales are present in our region and the nest boxes were installed to increase nesting sites for the phascogales where much of their habitat has been cleared. The boxes were installed in known existing phascogale habitat which included woodlands dominated by eucalyptus wandoo and sheoak. Phascogales favour sheoak thickets as they have a dense canopy which provides protection from areal predators and they provide a rich invertebrate community, an important part of the phascogales carnivorous diet, including beetles and cockroaches.

The phascogale nest box monitoring is a highlight of our year!

The Numbat Neighbourhood Project is funded by the Australian Government Natural Heritage Trust and delivered by PHCC, a member of the Commonwealth Regional Delivery Partners panel