The influence of plant scents on nest box inspection by Eastern Rosella (Platycercus eximius)

ABSTRACT

Many cavity nesters add volatile plants with medicinal properties to their nests. In Australia, eucalyptus and tea-trees are highly volatile plants, which have antiparasitic and antimicrobial properties. Here, we tested whether scents of eucalypt (Eucalyptus polybractea) and tea tree (Melaleuca alternifolia) essential oils can attract birds to newly installed nest boxes. Twenty-four nest boxes received three scent treatments (eucalypt, tea tree, control) for 10 days each using a Latin-square design. Bird visitation was recorded using camera traps. Eastern Rosellas (Platycercus eximius) visited the nest boxes the most (1,454 visits) and were therefore the focus of the study. Eastern Rosellas did not change their behaviours in response to the eucalypt scent in nest boxes: there was no difference in visitation, duration of visits or nest box inspection behaviour between nest boxes with eucalypt scent and those with the control scent. However, Eastern Rosellas visited nest boxes with tea tree scent less frequently and spent less time at these boxes than those with the control scent. The mean time that Eastern Rosellas spent inspecting boxes slightly increased over the 10-day period following scent placement at boxes with control and eucalypt scents, while it sharply decreased at boxes with tea tree scent. This is the first study demonstrating that an Australian bird detected and behaved differently in response to plant volatiles. The use of scents may offer opportunities to not only attract, but potentially also deter certain birds from using particular hollows.

KEYWORDS:

• Olfaction
• hollow-nesting birds
• nest selection
• Eastern Rosella
• plant volatiles
• scent aversion

Acknowledgments

We thank the Burrendong Botanic Garden and Arboretum team, and in particular Mike Herbert, for their support and assistance. Deanna Duffy and Simon McDonald from SPAN at Charles Sturt University provided assistance with ArcGIS and R programming. Dale Nimmo for providing extra camera traps.

Disclosure statement

This research has been conducted using Habitech modular nest boxes which are manufactured by Habitech Pty Ltd and solely distributed by Habitat Innovation and Management. Neither business has sponsored, contributed to, or otherwise influenced this research in any manner. However, MC discloses a perceived conflict of interest as a director and shareholder in both companies.

Data availability statement

Data from this study are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.23930481.v1.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/01584197.2024.2323920.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by a WIRES grant, the Gulbali Institute at Charles Sturt University and the Stuart Leslie Bird Research Award by Birdlife Australia.