The Insect Barn Project In Sugup, Sabah !!!

While in Kota Kinabalu, from Feb 15th till Feb 17th 2011, I was given the opportunity to visit a three stories BH equipped  with a sizable insect barn.

The insect barn was about 20 feet by 8 feet and about 6,5 feet high. Divided into two separate units with one slightly larger then the new unit.

The owner installed those steel racks ready to receive those 2 feet by 3 feet black trays.

Unfortunately there was a small set back.

During her first time into operation the owner faces some unusual problems with the following:

1) The amount of insects it generated were plenty however there were at least two types of swallows that came to the BH.  The first was the Martin (make nest with clay) and swiftlet ( make nest with saliva).  It seems that the Martin were very aggressive when they are in a larger group.  They will chase away other visitors with smaller in number.

2) The smell generated by the insect barn was very strong and the owner indicated that you can smell the sour smell meters away from the building.  He was a bit disturbed with it and currently prefer to hold the insect generating project.  He was concentrating in finishing some rearing of special chicken dent around the fence of his BH.

I could not say much but he was very sure that the insect barn do generate lots of interest of insect eating birds however currently due to disturbance from those Martin he prefer to wait until more swiftlet stays inside the BH.

Once the number of swiftlet can reach about 50 - 100 staying inside then he will re activate the barn.

Beside follow up visit to this BH I was roped in to view three pieces of agricultural land in Kinarut (1 piece) and Mengatal (2 pieces).

Conducted the birdcall tests on all the threes.

One very interesting finding during the bird call test was the reaction of those "Palm" swiftlet to the Duress sound.

This Mr C wanted my help to asses a piece of kampung land to see if it was suitable or not.

While having a tour on the land I saw about three to found looks like swiftlet flying closed to a tall palm tree.

Mr. C was unaware about palm swiftlet.  The moment I observed their shape with very thin and long wings and a very sharp tail I told him that those are "Palm" swiftlet.

"Pak Harry what do you mean as Palm Swiftlet?"

My answer to him was, Mr C if you observe the shape of these swiftlet you can see that they have a longer but thinner wings with a longer span.  They also have a sharp tail like those nail.  They normally make their nests on palm tree leaves.

Then suddenly we can see that these palm swiftlet surged to the leaf and went missing for a few seconds and they come back flying in the air after that.

Swiftlet will never stop or make their nests on trees.

The next interesting thing to watch was their reaction to a bird call test.

Mr C wanted me to test the land to see if there were any swiftlet in the area.

The moment the duress was played about 20-30 birds flew about the gadget.  To our surprise about 5-8 of them were palm swiftlet.  They seem to behave exactly the same with the real swiftlet but we should not count them as the real one.

How interesting and is a new finding in my swiftlet farming career.

So be advise on this new finding.  Try to know how to identify them and deduct their numbers if they happened to joint the crowd when you conduct your bird call test in the future.