Jayden Gunn knows birds and loves conservation, so to be able to help a movement working towards getting their numbers back up to scratch was a win-win.
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He was one of about 50 people who turned up to the Tamworth Regional Landcare Nursery on Sunday for a working bee.
This time, their hands were put to use building bird boxes, repurposing things like pallets and reused timber to create nesting places.
That's alongside the propagation and seedling replanting as normal.
Tamworth Urban Landcare Group (TULG) have funding from the Landcare NSW drought and bushfire relief donations to help reestablish the bird populations around in the Moonbi Ranges.
Their efforts will support the ongoing bushfire recovery of the area.
"Most of the money will be going towards hiring cherry pickers to put the boxes in the trees," Paul Moxon laughed.
He explained that after a habitat's destruction, there was a staged return: plants, insects, small predators and then larger predators.
Without the bird numbers enough to maintain the 'natural order', the population of insects and small critters normally food for the feathered animals are taking off.
"Even with these boxes it will be almost seven years until the bird populations, the bigger predators, return to 'normal'," he explained.
"So sorry folks, the birds won't help with the mice or the locusts anytime soon."
As president of the TULG, he is thrilled to see so many hands making light work, almost, of the dismantling and assembling. One of those people was Mr Gunn.
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Coming from a land care background, he's a keen conservationist, "animal fanatic" and photographer, so having the chance to meet like-minded people on Sunday was an offer too good to refuse.
"Plus it's great to give a bit back to the community too," he said.
He found a friend in Craig Pullman, Landcare's regional coordinator for the North West.
"It great to come out on my Sunday off, learning all the time about biodiversity. And you always learn something new, especially from the other people who come along."
