Owl on eggs in nest box
Australian Ringneck parrot in nest box
Original Owl Box
My hobby of making nesting boxes began when my partner and I, moved to our home in a street with some big trees. I made a box from old fence pickets and put it in a tree in our garden. Amazingly, a southern boobook owl was soon raising babies in it. Eager for more bird action, I improved my bird box design and produced different sizes for different birds. I then installed them around our property, also donated many around the neighbourhood and we realised the occupancy rate was 100 per cent. Once the birds find my box, competition is fierce.
Listen to the call of the Southern Boobook owl: Call of the Southern-Boobook-owl
“Parrot peek is a cracker”
Joe installed a box with camera and microphone here and a pair of Twenty-Eight Parrots nested in it. We had a screen set up in front of our gift shop so that customers could see what was happening right through from the parents making the nest, laying eggs, feeding the babies to the young birds leaving the nest. The pair of twenty-eights raised six youngsters from six eggs last year!!!
Alec Hooper of Zanthorrea Nursery at Malda Vale
A home for owls amongst the gum trees
It takes hundreds of years for a barn owl hole to form in the trunk of a tree, but not long at all to get rid of a tree with a hole in it to make way for houses. “They’ve knocked down a whole lot of trees around here lately so the owls are losing places to live,” says Joe Tonga, who was recently called out to build a new place in Hilton for a homeless barn owl.
Local Ann Boekeman noticed the owl hanging around a couple of months ago, and called Mr Tonga after reading about his bird boxes with infra-red cameras in the Herald (Big brother spies on birds, July 21). “Hilton’s an owl-rich area, with barn owls and the southern boo-book owls here – it’s also rich with big trees,” says Mr Tonga, a carpenter by trade with a fascination for birds. The 150cm high box is the biggest he’s made and is the equivalent size of a 350 year old tree. Barn owls grow to about 35cm high.
Once the barn owl has settled in, Mr Tonga will whip back up the tree and put in cameras which will eventually be hooked up to the Internet. He’s built similar boxes for bats at the Piney Lakes Environmental Centre in Winthrop and makes boxes with or without cameras for bird enthusiasts.
— By Matt Chambers for the Fremantle Herald
Nestboxes with Infra-Red Cameras – Taking bird watching to a whole new level
East Fremantle resident Joe Tonga has taken bird watching to a whole new level. He builds nest boxes fitted with infra-red cameras so he can watch his favourite owls up close and personal. While there aren’t any big trees in his backyard, Mr Tonga’s neighbours trees are home to three boxes which he monitors from his home office. He also builds boxes for bird enthusiasts and provides bird and bat boxes for Piney Lakes reserve in Winthrop, where his cameras will beam the action live into the education centre.
Mr Tonga homes watching bats at home will educate people about their less scary side, especially their ability to act as an environmentally friendly insect repellent. “Each bat can eat up to 1,000 mosquitoes a night”, he said. Piney Lakes mozzies beware – the two bat boxes can house up to 750 bats.
The fascination with birds began when Mr Tonga was a young man and branched out into building nest boxes when he became a carpenter. He is one of only four people in the world with this kind of owl-watching capability and he’s hoping to get a grant to enable him to broadcast the secret lives of birds and bats on the web.
Nest boxes were needed around the metropolitan area because of the destruction of old hollow trees that are normally home to owls and bats, Mr Tonga says. “These boxes would equate to a 200 year-old tree and there’s not many big trees like that around anymore”, he said.
— Katherine Fleming (Fremantle Herald)
Bird filmers box clever – Hidden cameras tape avian antics in the garden
Every garden looks better if there are birds in it and Joe Tonga’s mission is to ensure that as many gardens as possible contain native birds. From his home in East Fremantle Joe is providing artificial nest boxes for owls, parrots, cockatoos and may other birds, as well as possums and bats. “People are putting them in their back yards, sometimes in types of trees that birds and animals would not normally go near when looking for a nesting site, and native species are flocking to them,” Joe said.
Hobby farmers also have taken to the nests with some buying half a dozen and wanting to fit the boxes with video and audio gear so they can check on birds and animals without disturbing them. Joe can install a camera in a false ceiling at the top of a nest as well as another at the bottom, attached to the outside of the nest, with both cameras operating behind glass.
The trees around Joe’s house, in his neighbours’ yards and on verges, have sprouted an array of nest boxes suitable for birds ranging from owls to tiny pardalotes. “I wanted to encourage native birds to nest here, so I installed a box in a tree and a short while later a southern boo-book owl nested in it and raised three babies,” he said.
That was five years ago, and Joe, a house renovator, has been making and installing boxes in his spare time ever since. An interest in electronics led him to connect tiny infra-red cameras and microphones to the boxes with cables running down the trees and buried underground leading to a monitor in his study, where the action can be enjoyed and recorded on video tape. “I guess you could say the boxes I’ve placed around here are my test sites where I see what works and what doesn’t,” Joe said. “Boxes in other locations have become home to many species, among them ducks, black cockatoos, kingfishers, kookaburras and insectivorous Gould’s wattle bats.”
Joe said the bat boxes were particularly interesting because they were totally different from regular nest boxes. “Two sizes are available. The smaller box is about the size of a small shoe box and contains a series of plywood partitions around 15mm apart that provide enough roosting space for approximately 50 of the mouse-sized bats.” he said. “I also make larger bat boxes that can accommodate up to 400.”
Joe found the nesting habits of striated pardalotes interesting. “I saw them taking twigs and other nesting material into a box over several weeks before the activity stopped and when I checked a while later I found it completely full of nesting material,” he said. Further investigation revealed that a spiral-shaped tunnel around the width of a 20c coin, led to a chamber at the bottom that contained a nest of youngsters. A small section of hollow log is fixed to the front of each of Joe’s nesting boxes box to imitate a natural entrance and a wire mesh ladder inside the entrance lets inhabitants easily enter and leave.
“I have had birds visit the boxes every single day since I had them installed”
I have had birds visit the boxes every single day since I had them installed and I have had at least one parrot reared in one of the boxes.
I get a lot of enjoyment from the fact that they choose to make my home their home. I don’t have to feed them, clean out the cages, and what’s more I am doing my part to sustain native wildlife in the city. Shouldn’t you?
Cristina Angel
Nedlands, Western Australia
Owner of an owl box, a bat box, 2 parrot boxes and a pardalote box.
Nesting box strictly for the birds
Joe Tonga’s hobby is strictly for the birds. The self-taught carpenter from East Fremantle spends his spare time making nesting boxes for native animals. He has made about 90 since he started about four years ago.
Mr Tonga’s latest work was a nesting box for a barn owl after a friend his found a barn owl nest on the ground in Guildford. Mr Tonga said the nest was probably blown out of a tree during recent storms. The nesting box will be put in place this week. “We’ll have to put winch on the tree to install it – it will be like a dog box in the sky,” Mr Tonga said. “After it’s been pulled up the tree, I’ll climb up and bolt the box on.” The City of Swan paid for the materials and installation of the box. “Barn owls aren’t very common in the metropolitan area and the City is pleased to be able to help retain their numbers in our region,” a spokesman said.
The nesting boxes are built from Queensland hoop pine and have a sheet metal covering the roof. A small section of a hollow log is used as an entrance. More than 300 native Australian animals use hollow logs to nest or roost in. A wire mesh ladder is fastened against the front wall inside the box to enable its occupant to climb out.
Mr Tonga started building the boxes when he moved to a suburban block. “I built my first nest box, installed it before spring and lo and behold a Southern Boobook owl nested in it,” he said. The boxes were his way of putting something back into the environment. He has built boxes for private landowners and councils. Some boxes have been wired with infra-red cameras to record which birds use them. “A cable runs down the tree, into the house and feeds to standard television,” Mr Tonga said. “A microphone is also installed for the sounds of the birds. I have three cameras poised for the birds to enter and nest and these images will be uploaded on the Internet.” “Mr Tonga said there were several bird “webcams” operating around the world.
– First published on The Reporter
A Nest of Their Own
Joe Tonga’s nesting boxes entice owls, parrots, pardalotes and other wild creatures back to the suburbs.
How would you feel if the guy who built your house hid a camera in the ceiling, so that intimate images of your family life were beamed direct to a television screen in his office? Occupants of the homes thus rigged by Joe Tonga are unaware of the surveillance, however. Just like his other tenants — the many that are not monitored — they don’t even know that their ideal suburban residence has been created by a human being.
Joe’s hobby of making nesting boxes began when he and his partner, Lindy, moved to a block in a street with some big trees. Joe made a box from pickets and put it in a tree in the garden. Soon a southern boobook owl was raising babies in it. Next, the self-taught carpenter improved the construction materials and produced different sizes for different birds. He installed them around his property, neighbours bought some too and he realised the occupancy rate was 100 per cent.
“The shortest time I’ve known a bird to move in after I’ve put up the box is one hour,” Joe said. “Many birds require hollows to nest in trees but trees don’t develop hollows for a century or more. “By putting a box up, you can turn a 20 or 30 year-old tree into a 200 year-old habitat tree immediately. Once they find the box, competition is fierce.”
Keen to provide homes for wildlife elsewhere in the metropolitan area — and allow other people the pleasure of having animals live and breed in the backyard — Joe now sells nesting boxes to individuals and to primary schools. Needless to say, the secret camera technology isn’t part of the package. “Only an absolute birdo-nut like me would want that,” Joe said.
Joe is refining a bat box, with the entrance underneath vertical roosting compartments. The boxes are made from recycled materials. Queensland hoop pine, a plantation timber, is used for the sides, base and top; a recycled floorboard forms the backing block. Sheetmetal protects the roof and a wire mesh ladder inside the front wall allows the bird or animal to climb out. The most ingenious part is the entrance tunnel. Each is a natural hollow log, collected by Joe’s brother — who lives and works in the Wheatbelt — from old trees felled during land clearance.
Virtually any tree will do as a support. Even a post will suffice, provided the box is at least 4m above the ground. Joe’s boxes are never empty because after nesting season ends, marbled geckos, huntsmen spiders and myriad beetles move in. Everyone knows growing the right food plants attracts wildlife to a garden but insect populations, water and refuges also are essential.
Joe and Lindy’s garden has five birdbaths and seven ponds, including some tiny ones, and there is shelter everywhere. Frogs crouch in the throats of bromeliads or among reed clumps, and reptiles seek safety under logs and rocks or in earthenware pots laid on their sides — all courtesy of this real estate agent for small creatures whose proximity is — to him — the best reward.
