While some Perth residents spent the last summer by the pool or beach, Alison Ritchie was staring at trees.

Dr Ritchie was tracking the movements of birds as part of her study into the restoration of banksia woodlands north of Perth.

"Before sunrise I would head out and I did a 10 to 15-minute survey every hour on the hour until nearly sundown, seeing what was happening in multiple sites," she said.

"I would stare at trees doing observations of what birds were coming in on two different banksia species.

"Seeing their interactions and how they moved in the landscape."

Dr Ritchie, a post-doctoral fellow at Curtin University's School of Science, is researching the changes to the environment caused by decades of pine plantations, which are slowly being removed and replaced with native vegetation.

"With the removal of those pines there are certain areas we want to restore for food resources for birds and providing habitat for Carnaby's cockatoo," she said.

"The project is looking at how we overcome the issues when you live in such a disturbed, changed landscape."

The restoration project is aimed at returning the area to a state capable of maintaining stable populations of bird species seen in unchanged banksia woodlands areas.

But it has not come without challenges, both in the environment and among stakeholders.

"At the moment there's differences of opinion between what the Department of Water would like and how they'd like the Gnangara Mound to be managed for a water resource," Dr Ritchie said.

"And there's what the [Urban] Bushland Council and environmental scientists want, with protection and the increase of banksia woodlands.

"And there's the wants of the developers for housing in Perth, with the increase of people in the near future."

Monitoring for the future

As part of her studies, Dr Ritchie monitored the movement of birds at two sites under restoration, one with a mix of banksia species and another with just two main types.

She said the less vegetated site had fewer bird species, as bigger birds crowded out their smaller counterparts.

"Larger wattle birds tend to move in and chase all the other smaller foraging birds away," she said.

Western wattlebirds tend to scare away smaller birds if there's no protective bush understorey. ( Supplied: Alison Ritchie )

"There was no understorey habitat to support them and they didn't want to move into the sparse landscapes because they were open to attack."

But in the more varied vegetation areas, multiple species of birds were able to co-exist, as there was less competition for food.

"That system seemed to work because they would forage in different areas. They'd have their own patches and they could co-exist," Dr Ritchie said.

"A lot of the smaller honey eaters like the western spinebill and brown honeyeaters were in existence there."

Plants rely on birds

Dr Ritchie said the areas under study were part of a unique system where about 80 per cent of native plants required bird pollination, making the survival of banksia-eating bird species crucial.

She said the fragmentation of suitable nesting and feeding sites for native pollen-eating birds would continue to be an issue as Perth's population grew and urban sprawl continued.

"If they can't traverse these areas of suburbia and move far enough to get to these resources than you're going to see them less and less on the Swan coastal plain and further up in the more intact areas we have left," she said.

She said that made the long hours in the field vitally important.

Most of the plants in the study area require birds, like this white-cheeked honeyeater, to pollinate them. ( Supplied: Alison Ritchie )

"I was able to really classify what was happening during the day," she said.

"If birds are there and do the insects move in and what insects are there, and how they interact.

"Feeding patterns and trying to capture everything in the system."

But she admitted spending days on end in the banksia woodlands would not be everyone's cup of tea.

"It was really early hours and it's not really great in the really hot environment," she said.

"Especially as there's lots of ticks as well.

"Banksia scrubland is not the best place to hang out in sometimes, but it's what you do."