Last year as part of our Green Adelaide ‘Urban Wildlife Project’, the Planet Protectors organised 10 wildlife boxes to be installed at our school. Our boxes support parrots, brushtail possums and microbats. These wildlife boxes are hanging in the trees around our school yard – next to Peppertree, on the side of Jacaranda, through Haslop and behind Cedars. These boxes have joined the existing City of Unley network of 185 wildlife boxes situated through the streets and parks and recent surveys indicating 95% of the Unley boxes support indigenous fauna.

Natural tree hollows take over 100 years to form naturally and provide shelter, breeding and nesting habitats for almost 350 Australian wildlife species. Living trees moderate the temperature and humidity, making hollows cooler in hot weather and warmer in cold weather. Loss of habitat has a dramatic impact on many native animals and old growth trees containing natural hollows have become rare in our urban environment. Wildlife boxes can supplement available resources and help provide much-needed shelter to animals that need them to breed and care for their young.

Last week the Planet Protectors were fortunate to have Green Adelaide lend us a telescopic camera to look inside our boxes and check for any fauna action. The camera and light attach to the end of an extendable pole, a long cable connects to the controller. The light is gently turned on to highlight the inside of the box and the brightness can be adjusted for a clear inspection. We placed the camera in each of our wildlife boxes – turning the light on gently and taking photographs in each of the boxes.

While there was no wildlife in the boxes we could see some evidence that animals have been present in our boxes – leaves and feathers and mounding of some of the bark chips inside the boxes. We could see birds have been chewing at some of the timber on the boxes – especially the box on the Rugby Street cross over.  A hive of bees has taken over one of the parrot boxes behind the Peppertree building – we are asking one of our parents who is bee keeper to come and remove them.

The responsibility of our wildlife boxes has now been taken on by The City of Unley. In Spring the boxes will be inspected, cleaned and repaired by James Smith from Faunature. He will complete a detailed fauna report from all the wildlife boxes throughout Unley and share the details with us. We also plan to borrow the camera from Green Adelaide at the end of each term to make our an inspection. So when you’re moving around school keep your eyes up and please let us know if see wildlife action – you never know what you might see!

Abbe Staugas