Australian native birds (especially parrots) often have a hard time when it comes to nesting.  Their preferred spots are often taken over by starlings (a very aggressive non-native species), or lost to people cutting down dead trees for firewood.

To try to redress the balance a little my partner and I built a rosella nesting box and placed it under the eves of our cottage.  After a number of false starts with starlings trying to take over the nest box a pair of rosellas finally managed to set up house and start a family!  There have been “peepings” coming from the nest box for a couple of weeks now and yesterday we saw the first sign that the babies are doing well.

While I was retrieving a ladder from near the nest box I saw a slightly bald little face peeping out of the nest box!  Photo below …

A baby eastern rosella. Probably about two weeks away from fledging and leaving home

It’s great to be able to redress the balance a little and help out our native species.

John.