Best To Have Some Bright Lights Near The Entrance Hole !!!

I have to admit that among so many newbies on swiftlet farming that I have met, I found that this guy from Brunei is the most well educated and he seem to learn alots on swiftlet farming.

His name is Mr. Victor (sorry he told me not to let you all know his full name) and I am very impressed with the amount of knowledge that he gathered just within the last 6 months.

He told me that he drove his 4X4 wheel drive to a town called Pontianak and that journey took him more the 26 hours from Brunei. He went around from one birdhouse to another and ask those people around about the history of every house that he located. Every evening, when he was in Pontianak, he will spend time just to view those magnificient view of birds coming home to roost(rest).

He brought with him a set of birdcall test unit with more then 3 types of birdcall music. One of which was from me. When he found any suitable spot he will play the sound and observed the reactions of those birds in the surrounding. The best was the one that I supplied. He claimed that when my music was played, the birds will even fly out of the house to check where the sound was coming from. On some occassions the number of birds gathered were in the thousands.....

He planned to make another visit to the same town and wanted me to join him for the best experience in birdhouse advanture.... It seem that there you will see all kind of birdhouses that were build on land close to the port, in the main town and on agricultural land. Some are so unique and they were made to allow creeper plants to cover the house until you cannot differentiate that they are birdhouse....

He also bought all the books that he came across and also did attended a basic course in Penang.

I have to admit that he was so sharp and intelligent that I was very very careful in answering every question he that he posted. The trouble with intelligent newbie is that they already have the right answers in their head before they ask. Your answer is to reaffirmed what they already have the answers.... So can you imagine what I was up to????

One of the hot issue that we have a kind of discussion was on the requirements of putting light closed to the entrance hole. He wanted to know where to put and why must it be put there? What time the light should be switch on and what time it should be off? Will the light helps the bird to return home? What about those insects who love to play around the light? Will they be a good food source for the swiftlet?

Hmm hmmmmmmm .......................... I think you know what he is up to.....

Well my frank opinion is that lighting around the entrance hole is a must. The best is to install flood light as shown by the above picture. The light must be robust and water proof.

My reasons being that the light will benefited the owner by:



a) Your swiftlets will normally start coming back home from their feeding ground starting from 4.30 pm (rainy season when there are plenty of insects) until 9.00 pm (during dry season when there are less food). Once the sun in down, i.e. at around 7.00 (Peninsular Malaysia time) the swiftlet have no choice but to use their echo location. With the light on it will become like a navigational beacon for them to zoom to their target house.

b) Beside being used as navigational beacon, the light is also useful for detection of burglars. If you install camera around your building, the light will make the burglars realized that there are cameras around to snap on their beautiful face.

c) What about those night prediators especially Owl. They are not very happy with the bright light around.

d) If you switch the light slightly earlier then 7.00 pm, you will draw numerous small insects to the light areas. This will again provide some kind of meal before these birds enter the house to roost. It is more like a last minute meal before masuk tidor.....

Victor added that he saw a birdhouse in the Indonesian town he visited where the entrance hole of a house was just beside a huge brightly lighted billboard. With the bright light coming from the billboard the birds seem to have no problem to find their home. He guessed that they can come back late and no problem in finding their home.

I would say that the talk that I have with Victor is very enlightening. He have lots of ideas and wanted to start one birdhouse soon. His biggest problem is the cost to start one in Brunei is way to high as compaired to the neighboring countries. The cost for a two stories shoplot is nothing less then B$ 250,000 which can easily buy two units if he invest in Malaysia (Note: 1 Brunei Dollar equals to 2.3 Malaysian Ringgit). Remember that the nest are of the same value. To add salt to his injury is that there are more grass swiftlets then edible nest swiftlets in Brunei .....