Pick a Box

Sugar Glider

Inspired by Ronlit’s recent post It’s back!, and with the first frost of the year the other night, we thought it was time for a maintenance check on our fauna nest-boxes, and an inspection for any occupants. This proved to be a rewarding experience – of the 13 boxes we have installed, 6 were occupied by Sugar Gliders (Petaurus breviceps) and a seventh had a well-constructed Brush-tailed Phascogale (Phascogale tapoatafa) nest of shredded-bark with lots of fresh scats (droppings) and a strong smell, so probably had a phascogale in residence.
The boxes are of various designs with different sizes, shapes and entrance-hole location and diameter. The Sugar Gliders don’t seem to be too fussy, as long as there is a warm dry space inside. However, if you are considering installing nest-boxes, it pays to do it right. There is some really good information on nest-boxes  in a pamphlet available from the Strathbogie Ranges-Nature View website as a pdf download  called Nest-box Know-how which was developed from a forum at Violet Town last year .

The occupied boxes are shown below with their corresponding occupants. Several of the boxes, some made by Rotary, were donated following the Black Saturday fires.