THANKS TO Joe Tonga, people the world over soon will be able to see native Australian birds hatching their eggs and rearing youngsters in the nest.

Joe Tonga works on a large camera-equipped nest box, including a natural entry spout.

The self-described "nest-box fanatic" plans to be among the first in his country to upload images and sounds to the Internet, using his own line of custom-made nest boxes.

"I have three cameras set up and ready in boxes," he said. "When the birds take up residence I intend to upload the images so everyone can enjoy our unique and beautiful birds."

For now, Tonga's custom-made "wired" nest boxes are a hit with Western Australians, who are using them to join the worldwide nest-box cam craze to peer at everything on the nest from small song birds to large parrots. Tonga has sold them to suburbanites, businesses and reserves and has had inquiries from birdkeepers who want to be able to check on chicks without disturbing them.

A handyman and house renovator by trade, Tonga began building camera-equipped nest boxes in earnest four years ago when he moved into a new home.

"I wanted to encourage native birds to nest here, so I installed a box in a tree and a short while later a Southern Boobook owl nested in it and raised three babies," he said.

An interest in electronics prompted Tonga to create his own custom nest-box cam solution, including tiny infrared cameras and a microphone connected to the box, with cables running down the tree and underground to a monitor in his study, where he could watch the chicks and record all the action onto videotape.

Tonga points to live pictures of young birds in a nest displayed on a monitor in his study.

Since then, trees in Tonga's and his neighbors’ yards have sprouted an array of nest boxes in a range of sizes and configurations, suitable for birds ranging from owls to tiny pardalotes, a small nuthatch-size Australian bird.

The boxes serve as Tonga's test sites, "where I see what works and what doesn't."

Tonga-built nest boxes are among the Cadillacs of the cam-equipped set, constructed from sturdy Queensland hoop pine, including a recessed floor and a sheet metal roof to protect from rain. He fixes a small section of hollow log to the front of each box to imitate a natural entrance. Inside, under the entrance, he fastens a wire mesh ladder to make it easier for the nesting birds to enter and leave.

Each nest box has two cameras, one at the top looking down into the box and one at the same level as the eggs. Tonga installs the top camera in a false ceiling and the lower one in a small box attached to the outside of the nest. Both cameras operate behind glass.

Tonga developed his own software that lets the user take and store on the hard drive photos at any time, including when motion sensors detect a bird entering the box.

While the image quality is good, it's limited to black and white, he notes, as in most commercially available nest-box video products. "Even with the latest technology the color cameras cannot reproduce an acceptable color image under low-light conditions," he says.

Tonga sells some of his boxes to councils and shires, which install them on nature reserves.

The Perth suburb of Melville has purchased several of Tonga's boxes for its Piney Lakes Reserve. A pair of twenty-eights, which are large black and green Australian parrots, nest in one of them.

The monitoring equipment is powered by a solar cell on a post located near the tree containing the box and pictures and sound are transmitted to a computer screen in the reserve’s visitor center.

A Tonga-built nest box installed 30 feet above the ground in a marri tree has been a big hit with customers at the Zanthorrea Nursery in Maida Vale, an eastern suburb of Perth.

"Last year a pair of twenty-eights nested in it," said proprietor Alec Hooper. "We had a monitor set up in our gift shop so that customers could see what was happening right through from the parents making the nest, laying eggs, feeding the babies and the young birds leaving the nest."

A pair of rose-breasted cockatoos check out a nest box near Joe Tonga’s home.

He and his customers learned a lot about how the parrots raise babies, said Hooper. They watched as the birds laid six eggs, but then for some unknown reason shoved one out and refused to feed one of the babies, successfully raising only four.

The chicks "hatched at different times, so the babies were different sizes and we thought the bigger babies would get all the food," said Hooper. "But once each bird was full it would turn away from the parent bird doing the feeding and face toward the wall of the box, which allowed the other babies to feed."

Hooper and his staff got to know the feeding routine so well they were able to tease customers a bit by talking to the birds and making it look as if they were doing as told; for instance, telling the chicks to "turn around now."

Tonga recently installed a second, larger box in a rose gum tree at the nursery, which has attracted a pair of galahs now building a nest.

Red-capped parrots, striated pardalotes, tree martins, black cockatoos, kingfishers, kookaburras and even ducks also have used Tonga's boxes.

Tonga would like to devote all of his time to building and installing nest boxes. But first, demand for the high-tech birds' nests will have to increase.

"With a young family to support, I think I'll have to continue to do it part-time," he said.

Lloyd Marshall is a free-lance writer based in Perth, Australia. His work has appeared in Pet & Aviary Birds magazine, the United Kingdom newspaper Cage & Aviary Birds, and South Africa's Avizandum.