Community project builds new 'hollow' homes for wildlife south of Mandurah

The Herron mum was one of 30 community members from Herron and Lake Clifton to create new nest boxes for native wildlife on Friday and Saturday last week.

Together with 21 students from St. Damien's Primary School, they created 17 boxes during a workshop facilitated by The Re-Cyc-Ology Project, with the help of new ecology education charity, Swanlandia.

Seven native nest boxes made by students have been installed at St. Damien's school in Dawesville and will be monitored by students with the help of Swanlandia.

Another seven of the boxes from the community workshop went home with participants to install on their property.

The final three - including the one made by Ms Copeland with her children Isabella Copeland and Zara Buik and neighbour Albie Cooper, are being installed in the local area and will be monitored with motion cameras to keep an eye on who moves in.

"It will be amazing to be able to see what's going on in the boxes," Ms Copeland said.

"We'll be checking in lots to see what makes a home in the box we made. It was such a great experience for the children to make the boxes and the talk was amazing too - about the environment that is us and our surrounds and how we can involved and give the animals a home."

The boxes were made for possums, parrots, owls, phascogales and one Black Cockatoo nest box was also made.

Australia-wide, 303 native wildlife species rely on hollows to nest, breed, shelter and feed. This includes 31 per cent of native mammals and 15% of native birds.

"When we cut down trees that look dead or old we remove valuable hollows that are homes to many different animals," Swanlandia founder Jamie Van Jones said.

With only 28 per cent of the native vegetation remaining on the Swan Coastal Plain, wildlife will be feeling the loss of hollows. A hollow for a small bird species like a Pardalote can take 100 years to form. A large hollow for Black Cockatoos can take 250-300 years to get big enough.

Swanlandia ran the two Nest Box Building Workshops as their first community events, partnering with The Re-cyc-ology Project and funded by the state government's State Natural Resource Management Program.

Ms Van Jones said it was great to partner with Simon Cherriman and Danielle Crichton from The Re-Cyc-Ology Project.

"They brought expertise in nest box making and everything was made from materials that would have otherwise gone to landfill," she said.

Finding out who uses the nest boxes will be updated on swanlandia.com.au