A Town With The Name BP !!!

I felt very honored to be invited to visit Batu Pahat (BP) and my host was none other then Mr. Y.

Mr. Y is a retired man and he specializes in Electronic. Speaks little English or Malay but have this unique Chinese dictionary on his new lap top which allows him to translate every single words into Chinese. Hmm just imagine how much effort he took to translate my swiftlet blog (English) to Chinese. He love swiftlet and he admitted that he is a crazy swiftlet enthusiast. Just like me and Mr. A ....



Beside a wonderful host I met three other blog readers who came down to meet me for yam cha. Two from Port Klang and one from Segamat. Thank U and Thank U...

Mr. Y indicated that BP (not British Petroleum) have more then 200 birdhouses. Some are doing very well and of course the majority are not. The town just celebrated it centennial (100 years old) celebration.



I stayed in a simple hotel on the seven's floor. I guess you know what I saw the moment I opened the curtain. Full of those dog house shape extensions on so many of those shop houses below.

In the morning there were many birds circling about the roof top. At least 1,000 of them.

I went down early for a walk. The moment I put my foot out of the Hotel entrance, I saw so many of these wild swiftlet to the left hand side. I quickly move toward the flock and snapped a few of those birdhouses.

They are amazing and even at 9am they are still playing closed to those exit holes.

At about 9.15 am Mr. Y took me to a mamak shop together with my guests.

We then took a trip to a palm oil plantation about 8 kilometers away. Tested but the number of birds responded were too little. We moved to a new side beside a water pond.

The moment I activated the "DURESS" sound the birds simply flew on the top of Mr. Y's car. There were at least 200 of them. Outstanding but I was not very happy with the number. Well I believed most of the birds were deep in those forests.



The land owner, Mr. Y son's Godfather, was amused. He was smiling and enjoying the show. To him this is like a party. Well after the birdcall test he got us a few gunny sacks of local Durian. Hmmm they were very good. Since we wanted to enter a birdhouse we do not want to be too smelly... I am not sure if durian smell will cause lots of stress to the swiftlets.... He he he.

Visited Mr. Y birdhouse and observed lots of interesting design and features that I have never seen before.

The entrance was from the top and bird will fly direct to the middle of the BH. As such the roving room was in the middle and the nesting rooms were located to the left and the right of it. Hmm Hmm very interesting...



Entrance hole (only one) was very big. If I am not mistaken it was 5 feet by 7 feet. Massive and the amount of light penetrating the roving room was great.

I saw some life tree twigs just in the middle of the entrance hole. I told him to get rid of the blockage.

It will be pretty hard to control the humidity. The measuring tool indicated a temperature of 27*C and humidity of 73%. There were no humidifiers.

All the ventilations holes were wide opened. There were about inlet 9 pipes. I told Mr. Y to close all except one. He was about to apply those aroma.

The nesting woods looks alright except that they were not spaced out to the required width and matrix crosses. I pointed that to him but there is no need to be alarm over the matter. Most important is to be careful for his second house which is undergoing construction. I prefer to be designed row of 30 cm apart and cross matrix with 100 cm.

Mr. Y do placed lots of tweeters. He uses those square piezo type. I can see that every corners he will placed one. All tweeters were facing to the birdhouse entrance direction. He is a smart man. I think he do read lots of books, blogs and attended a few seminars....

The only thing that I was not happy about was the distribution of his tweeters placement. Since he do not have many matrix wood most of the corners were at the end or near to the walls and cement beams. As such there were not many being placed in the middle portion of the nesting rooms.

Well I was happy and surprised with the number of bird shits found in both the nesting rooms. There were at least 20 of them and some were with markings, empty nests and a few with babies. The BH was said to be in operations for almost 8 months. The temperature and humidity does not effect these tenants that much but I am sure there would be more if these microhabitat are proper...

Well I strongly believed that the house was quite okay but it could have been better.

Given a choice I will reduce the entrance hole a bit and close some of the passage which allows too much light into the roving areas.

I recommended the activation of those insect powder and taught Mr. Y on how to apply those aroma.

Oh yes, Mr. Y do installed about 10 fake nests. There were a few with signs of birds using them...

The bird call sound was better as compared to the last house I visited and Mr. Y have a few sets with him. I told him to change the set every three months.

There were a list of things that I pointed to Mr. Y and today when I called him he have already take actions on some of those I pointed out.

I am hopeful that Mr. Y's BH will do well and I promised to stay I touch with him on a regular basis....



Special Note: A Tree taken over and become a permanent resident in a shop house. There were at least 5 of them. What a waste !!!!