Places for Penguins: Nest boxes
Nest boxes serve a number of purposes including increasing the number of potential nest sites in an area and preventing dogs and cats from accessing nests.
Thanks to an Infinity Foundation grant in 2011, we have been able to purchase new equipment for volunteers to check nests and collect data at our Wellington project. This included a nest camera, a GPS device to map the nest-sites and mirrors to allow easy-inspection of boxes & prevent disturbance.
As well as allowing easy and less disruptive access for researchers, the nest boxes has shown to improve the breeding success of Little Penguins.
Nest boxes serve a number of purposes including increasing the number of potential nest sites in an area and preventing dogs and cats from accessing nests.
The Places for Penguins project has placed over 250 nest boxes along the Wellington South coast so that penguins do not have to cross the coastal road to find safe nesting areas.
Little Penguins generally do well in nest boxes, and some penguins seem to prefer the boxes to natural nests. Indeed, when the nest boxes were trialled, several pairs of penguin vacated their natural nests in exchange for boxes.
You can also help provide suitable habitat for nesting penguins by providing nest boxes and managing pests.
When building a nest box you’ll need to consider a number of things:
Boxes should be placed no more than 2m apart (penguins are territorial and will defend their nest site within about a 1m radius).
If regular inspections are not required for research purposes, the lid should be nailed down to prevent it from being knocked off during courtship or territorial defence.
It is best to place boxes on a slope with the entrance facing downhill so that water can escape.
Boxes are intended to be buried but they will also work as free-standing unit.
Nesting material should not be provided. The penguins are perfectly capable of gathering nest materials on their own, and materials such as straw and hay may dangerous as they can cause severe respiratory infections.
A diagram with step-by step instructions on how to construct a nest box may be found here.
About wētā motels
- Wētā live in holes but there really aren’t that many holes in trees. That’s why wētā dig under stones or chew through rotten logs to make their homes.
- Wētā motels are no-fuss homes for wētā. They find one, crawl in and relax. You can place a wētā motel in a tree, under a tree and even on a fence post.
- Big heavy animals can squash wētā.
- Female wētā lay 100-300 eggs so if you build a home they like and wētā live there, their numbers will grow!
Explore your backyard
Explore your garden and see if you have some wētā already. Find out what kind of wētā you have, or what kind of wētā like to live in your area.
Think about what would make a great wētā home – this will help you work out where to put your wētā motel.
Saw a small log in half
Chisel out the wētā gallery
Drill a hole for the entrance tunnel
A completed 3 star wētā motel
Build a wētā motel
3 star wētā motel
A 3 star wētā motel is simple and fun to make. Experiment! Weta don’t care if it’s a crooked little house!
- Start with a small log and saw it in half.
- Chisel out the weta gallery and drill an entrance tunnel.
- Nail or bind the two halves together and nail on a roof.
- Hang or tie the motel in a tree in a shady spot at about eye level.
5 star wētā motel
Try making this 5 star wētā motel. Using this plan, you can create a 10 unit 'motel' in your garden for wētā.
It’s great but takes longer to make than the 3 star model.
It has been designed by Victoria University of Wellington entomologist Professor George Gibbs, who has given permission for the Department of Conservation to distribute it.
Handy hints for making weta motels
- Wētā like motels that are made from willow and aged pine (rather than fresh pine).
- Entrance tunnel holes should be 18 mm or slightly less in size to stop mice (10 mm is too small), and quite long and sloping down from the top or the side.
- Wētā don’t like vertical tunnels heading up from the bottom.
- Wētā like to enlarge their rooms or galleries and they like deep galleries and wood that isn’t rotting.
- Wētā prefer motels without windows but they will live in motels with windows as long as their gallery is deep.
- The windows should be made from perspex or plastic from a bottle with shutters that can be closed. They should be removable for cleaning because they go mouldy.
- Wētā will live in motels with more than one gallery but you’ll probably get more wētā if you have more single room motels.
- In the forest wētā move in within three months and after a year they have about four wētā in each motel.
- Wētā like motels and backyards that don’t have rats!
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