A new BH I recently visited somewhere in Tanjung Malim.
This BH is a stand alone unit located on an agricultural land along the old road from Tanjung Malim to Kuala Lumpur.
Initially the owner uses the land as their construction equipment storage areas. Due to economic recession they uses their idle workers to build BHs on it.
A sizable BH three stories and each floor occupied about 40'X100'. The floor height was about 14 feet each.
I was invited to view and gives my comments on any shortcomings before being put into operation mode about three months ago.
These were my observations and concerns:
1) Very well done unit. The owner seem to learn a lot from their experiences while building their first unit which currently housed about 400 nests nearby.
2) The nesting planks seem to be well installed with nesting planks installation boxes of about 2 feet by 3 feet. This design will provide an optimum number of nests of about 7 nests per square foot (estimated).
3) All corners were with corner covers. I don't actually prefer this however this covering was their requirements. Since it was new, the corners should be exposed as an attraction to those wild birds. Cover them later after the house have 300 nests in them, I recommended.
4) All junctions formed by the four corners were properly covered with metal plates to prevent breeding of cockroaches. A very well done workman ship.
5) The house uses a monkey house about 8 feet by 10 feet long on the top most and with the entrance hole facing Tanjung Malim. I was concerned over the owl protection. I recommended to use of those sharp nails and fishing string strips.
6) I was not happy over the lack of Hexagonal tower to blast those bird sounds. I brought one unit and they did the installation immediately after I left. With the installation the bird call sound can be 360* distributed. Remember if they depend only from the sound at the entrance hole, they only have a 180* sound direction.
7) The roof top were flat and without any rooftop cover. I was very pleased that they decided not to put any water pond on it. Just imagine if the water pond leaks into the BH? What I am now concerned was the heat generated by the hot sun on the roof. They should place a rooftop cover from the beginning.
8) The entrance from the monkey house to the lowest floor was via LAL that uses the staircase air well. Something common among stand alone unit.
9) There were at least four partitioning per floor. These partitioning were installed in a ziz zaz manner and painted black. I was very concerned over one of the wall that was blocking the flight path of those birds coming into the floor. I advise the owner to do a suitable openings to allow those birds to fly in. They did what I asked the next day. They did not install any external sound tweeters on the door leading to the nesting room. I asked them to put some.
10) The house temperature seem to be alright. I was told that the owner uses a double layered bricks with a 1 inch air gap between the two layers.
11) Since the house have no water spray system, the owner opt for using those soundless humidifiers. I supplied about 20 units to be installed in the two BHs in operation.
12) One strange idea that the owner decided was to install many ventilation holes all over the walls. The most weired was the size of the PVC pipe used. Normally we see the use of about 4 inches however this house uses the 6 inch diameter pipes. Huge and lots of air coming in. I advise them to think carefully when opening all these holes. My reminder to owner was to remember that most of the daytime the air outside are too hot and too dry.
13) The data room was very small. It was located along the external wall of the BH and very small. Just enough for one person to stand and do any adjustment. I normally recommend that the data room must be spacious enought to man the BH. It should be cosy with table, chairs, fan or even airconditioned. The room should be treated as the operation center of the BH and not a store room.
14) It was very strange to see how those amplifiers were set. They were lucky to have me around. I quickly reset those knobs to ensure that the amplifiers gives the optimum output during their operation. There must be some spares in the room. In case of any breakdown those spare will come handy.
15) When discussed on the number of good sounds, the owner indicated that they have very little and would like by suggestions. What I recommended was to invite a suitable person who owned a list of good Bird call sounds and try one by one for about 10-15 minutes. The owner shall observe the effectiveness. Choose about 5 good sounds that when tested brings those wild birds and many will enter the entrance hole.
16) The owner opt for those cluster type of internal sound tweeters. I was against the selection because it minimises the benefits of being used as a place to build nests. I prefer the rectangular 2"X5" with their mouth facing the bird's entrance door. Each floor should hold at least 150 tweeters (40'X100' floor size).
17) As usual the owner put very little attention on the installation of external sound tweeters inside the nesting rooms. I identified those specific locations and I was told they were immediately installed.
18) I did asked the owner to split the wiring properly. Try to have two separate lines for external sound tweeters at the entrance hole and the LAL while the rest on another line.
I was happy to note that after putting the BH into operation they are being occupied in less then three weeks.
If you wanted to get more details about this BH please let me know. Call this number 017 755 1318
Donation: I am sure you have learned something after reading this article. If you feel that the lesson learned deserved an encouragement you can contribute a some donation to this account: Yayasan Kebajikan Nah Sabah, 100930010038410 at Allied Bank, Malaysia.
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