Rare birds breed in mock nests

“We’ve designed those hollows on measurements we’ve taken of actual nests and then we did quite a bit of experimentation trying to find ways to keep bees out of wooden nests using different insecticides and all sorts of designs."—Professor Johnstone. Image by davidfntau.

A group from Murdoch University and the WA Museum have successfully encouraged a threatened cockatoo to breed for the first time in the metro area.

A Forest Red-tailed Black Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus banksii naso) chick hatched mid-May on Murdoch University’s South St campus in a specially designed artificial nesting hollow installed by the university’s Environmental Restoration Group.

Adjunct Murdoch University Professor and WA Museum’s Curator of Ornithology, Professor Ron Johnstone, says the breeding is a big step forward in the conservation of the species.

“The Forest Red-tails have a very different breeding biology to the other well known cockatoos,” Prof Johnstone says.

“The Forest Red-tails breed only on a 2–3 year cycle; they lay a single egg; they mate for life; they don’t breed til around 6 years of age and they return back to the same breeding hollow each breeding season assuming that the hollow is still there.

“There been a lot of things that’s impacted on their breeding biology in the past 40–50 years, including competition of other species like galahs and corellas and also feral honey bees taking over their hollows.”

Prof Johnstone says the successful breeding can be largely attributed to the design of the nesting hollows installed by the university.

“We’ve designed those hollows on measurements we’ve taken of actual nests and then we did quite a bit of experimentation trying to find ways to keep bees out of wooden nests using different insecticides and all sorts of designs."

“We found PVC worked extremely well as the bees don’t seem to like it.

“We know they work with Carnaby’s Cockatoos but this was the first time they’ve been used by one of the forest species so it is really quite special.”

Murdoch Environmental Restoration Group founder Neil Goldsborough says it was fortuitous that the Forest Red-tails chose to move onto Murdoch’s campus, both for the species, and for those working to preserve it.

“We’ve been very lucky in the sense that we’ve achieved something that is out of the ordinary,” he says.

“Fingers crossed, we’re talking to some of the academics around campus, one of the lecturers is going to try to get an honours student for next year to have a look at monitoring the nest boxes.”

The project has also formed part of an ongoing study by the WA Museum examining the breeding biology, food and behaviour of all three species of black cockatoo – the Forest Red-tailed, Baudin’s (Calyptorhynchus baudinii) and Carnaby’s (Calyptorhynchus latirostris) Cockatoos.