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Pale-headed rosella
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The MatchBox
| Kookaburra nestbox |
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| The kookaburra is
another animal that takes readily to a backyard nestbox. They are not popular with small
birds, although they rarely prey on birds. More serious is the noise that they make;
kookaburras rise before all other birds, and their call rises also ... to a crescendo ...
and more than once.
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On the other hand they are very intelligent birds, and their long gestation and fledging periods, plus their very active and vocal behaviour during breeding, make them by far the most entertaining of all the backyard hollow-users. Probably more than half of all kookaburras nest in excavated termite mounds, but they will just as readily use a tree hollow. Young kookaburras keep the nest clean by excreting out the entrance, so the base of the entrance needs to be level with the floor. This makes a kookaburra nestbox quite different to those for other animals. Most of our experience has been with a box constructed from a plastic drum which is stabilised against UV radiation. While some kookaburras have used a 10l drum, most would probably not use anything smaller than 15l. This design makes a light, strong and spacious box. |
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| One
problem with the drum design is that it cannot be possum-proofed. For this reason we
are now recommending a ply box to the dimensions shown in the sketch. This box has
also been used successfully by kookaburras. While it would appear to be easier to
possum-proof, this has not yet been tried.
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