In January this year volunteers Annie and Ian Mayo put up 20 pygmy possum nest boxes in the vegetation restoration area on Monjebup North Reserve in south-west Western Australia.
The boxes were funded by a generous donation from a supporter to provide shelter and nesting sites for these tiny possums in the developing vegetation.
We checked the boxes yesterday and were delighted to find that five boxes had been used and in two of those the occupants were still at home.
An adult and its young were curled up in one box and in another a single adult was asleep in a nest of leaves.
In addition to the possums we found dozens of small, black native cockroaches, large crickets and numerous large, grey spiders. No doubt these invertebrates provide food for the possums and may even have attracted them to the boxes initially.
This is an exciting result as up until yesterday we had only two records of them in the restored area.
We will be checking these boxes regularly and as the vegetation grows will be putting up additional boxes in the newly planted areas.