I just hope that this will not be my daily life events. Walking on the top of the BH roof just to check on the BH bird entrance hole.
Well, the day that I arrived in KTrengganu, met this Mr.K who wanted those insect powder, the aroma for the planks, the Hgrometer, the Birdcall Gadget and few others.
I met in at the hotel carpark in KT and the first offer he have for me was " Would you like to see my BH?". Hmm hmmm I just could not resit the temptation of visiting a BH along the Kampung China.
Well I accepted his invitation and off we go to his BH.
Well well well. I was in for a very big suprise.
1) The floor was actually flooded with water, about 3mm thick. I need to pull my pants up and the water nearly enter my shoes. A bit too much of water and I don't think that is a good practise. No matter what he do got those birds in his house.
2) The room shit smell was really strong. To me this is what it should be to attract those birds in but the wet floor is not very good for the house expecially possibility of leaking to the lowest floor, slippery and hygine. He should have placed his BH birdshits onto a kind of trays and wet them so that they can fermented or oxidise to produce as much amonia smell as possible.
3) His BH have at least 500 nests. They seem to nest nearly everywhere on the ground floor only. Upper floor seem to be empty with no sign of many birdshits on the floor. They also nest on the cement walls of the BH.
4) His BH ceilings roof were made of zinc sheets. This is the first time I come a cross a BH with zinc plated roof. I wonder why the BH owner chooses zinc sheets. If they act with air and water there will be a kind of oxide layer formed on it. I hope these oxide layer will not be harmfull to the nests.
5) Those birds were colonising the walls even though the wooden planks were not fully occupied. I also observed that those white paint on the wall tend to give way when the birds anchor their nests. I believe you should not apply any paint onto your BH walls.
6) A number of these nests were warping (the lower part of the nest were curling up). The main cause of this warping was said to be due too high the humidity. In the beginning I thought it was due to high temperature. So the best way to solve this is to cut your humidity range, using hygrostat, to below 90% RH. The owner claimed that he runs the humidifier without any hygrostats and his floor were flooded with water too.
7) There were many baby birds which are about to fly away. This might be due to the season where lots of those your birds are maturing and are about to fly out.
8) His roving area were unusual. The room was about 7 feet and the only way to climb up was via a brick size path slanting at 45 degress and was wet. I nearly slipped into his LAL. This is another house design features that I hate to comment. It is dangerous if you do not plan them well from the beginning. Just imagine if you visit your birdhouse alone and you fell into the LaL? No one knows until they smell your decomposing body....
9) He wanted me to view his dog kennel area on the top of his BH roof. I crawled up there just for the sake of getting some pictures for my blog readers. I feel like the "Catman" on the rooftop. Well I now know that it is not easy to be a successfull blog writer. Some time you need to sacrify the confort of staying at home, climbing roof tops, walk on a flooded BH floors, and conduct birdcall test near people's BH. All these are danger, danger, danger man .....
10) He painted his dog kennel and a certain part of his BH roof in dark BLUE. He claimed that since he change the color from yellow to blue there were a surge of his birds population.(You may want to try but if it does not work please don't blame Harry???. I thought Pak Hendry told me that these swiftlets are color blind. He he he......)
11) His birdhouse entrance hole was fully covered with with steel grill. The size and design was just suitable to let the birds flew in but not the Catman????? The grill came in one piece and they can be fixed internally complete with a hinge. Sorry for not getting the right measurement.
11) He gave me a tip and it goes like this: " Take those duck egg white and stir them gently. Once done apply them onto those areas that you wanted to have the nest being built by those birds. They do look like a new birdnest marking and the smell is very attractive to the siftlets. (Please don't blaim me it it does not work.)
12) Before opening up his LAL hole by about 4 feet by 4 feet more he found that there were many young birds dying on the lower floor. He sacrified the additional nesting space and now there were no longer dead swiftlets. (So if you do find many dead birds in your BH, this might be one of the reason. Your LAL is too small and you need to open them up).
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