Among the many BHs that I looked after the Kepong BH is my favorite.
Main reasons being, it is near to my house (10 minutes) and the owner give me a free hand to carry out what ever revamp works as long as his nests number multiply.
What I did was to keep track of the bird count that enter the BH from 7:00pm till about 8:00pm on alternate Fridays.
Every time I carried out modifications or change of external sound I will make a point to record them in the list.
So now I have nearly 40 readings that gives me some clear indication on the progress of the BH.
They grew steadily but there were some dips and sudden jumps especially after those modification works or change of sound. During a very dry season the number dips considerably (I think they travel further and will come back late).
Among all the best jumps, where there is a considerable jump in numbers of birds entering the BH, was when the wet floor was introduced.
The number of birds entering the BH jumps to nearly double.
There must be something strong that pushed the number to such a big increase.
First I think the humidity, especially in the wet room, will be higher then normal. Birds love high humidity and wet floor is the way to go. It tends to have lesser chances to wet the nesting planks as compared to blasting those chicken coop humidifiers for 24 hours.
It seems that young birds generated by your own BH will not return home to roost or multiply if your BH is too dry. Wet floor attract them to stay.
Second reason might be due to the rotting smell of those bird shit that I sprinkled on the wet sand. It must have generated those strong ammonia smell making all these birds to think that the BH is full of birds. Their instinct of feeling safe in a larger crowd might be a possible reason.
My experiment using wet floor seems to be working and I fully recommend that to those who have difficulties in increasing their BH nests number try the method.
There is no harm in trying because it will cost you very little. Just a roll or two of those plastic sheet, a few bags of sand and fresh bird shit. You need to regularly wet the sand.
Try to focus only inside the VIP room.
Yesterday I was there again with my assistant to add a few new things that I believed will further improves the nest count withing the next three months.
The list of things I carried out were:
a) Added additional external tweeters on the roof top facing the neighbors BHs. Only two 3"x7" bullet tweeters. One directly towards the neighbor's BH rooftop while the other towards their flying path to the same BH.
b) Added two Kite Tweeters inside the VIP room. Main reason was to draw more birds into the VIP room.
c) Installed about 30 sets of wood corners on those nesting planks at the perimeter of the VIP room. This wood assembly, consisted of a normal nesting plank about 7" long attached to a 90* corner cover, provide a temporary location of a 90* and 130* angle corners. Once used by those wild birds the gadget will be removed to ensure that the birds will now build a new nest but with the 180* shape nest.
d) Installed an auto changer for external sound amplifiers. This gadget is an auto system that allows the use of two amplifiers for my external sound. Prior to installing I was playing only one sound (low budget).
e) Added a new amplifiers to allow the setting of two separate set of external sounds to be played more effectively. Now I will be able to use two separate sounds, one the effective sound (gurilla) and less effective sound (NBU).
f) Change and adjust the timing of the external sounds. My main focus will be the last hour of the daylight and the early morning.
g) Ten sets of those 2mm X 5"X6" aluminum plates were also installed. This gadget is one of my research activities. I wanted to know whether aluminum plate is attractive to these wild birds to build their nest on them or between the gap.
h) The wet floor area were flooded with lot more water. The last time I visited the BH was about three weeks ago. I wet the floor manually but it seem it was not wet enough. This time I used the existing plastic bins (four all together) and filled them up one by one. Once they were full I splash them onto the wet floor area.
i) A new chicken coop humidifier was installed. This was something extra which I installed. The old unit was giving loud sound. I set the timing properly so that it will run about 5 times during day time.
g) The floor areas of the roving and main hall were wet with birdnest processed water. I brought along with me about four 10 liter bottles of nests process water. They smell wonderful, to those birds, and I wanted the whole house to have this special smell. I splashed the water onto those cement floor that are not covered with those plastic mat.
j) All tweeters were checked and those faulty were replaced. There were a few tweeters that were found to be faulty. Most important were those at the entrance hole.
k) A bag of fresh bird shit were sprinkle on the wet floor. Fresh bird shit should be reapplied on a regular basis. Most of these shit, after a few months will not act as a medium to produce those ammonia smell. I believed a bag or two for every VIP room will be a excellent choice. Make sure the floor are pretty wet then pour those bird shit onto the floor.
l) Upon completion the VIP room's walls were sprayed with "Passionate Love" aroma. All the four walls of the VIP rooms were sprayed with the aroma to enhance the attractiveness to those wild birds.
m) The chicken coop water were spiked with "mysecretrcp" aroma. This is one way to make sure the room smell is well covered. Just pour about 200 milliliter of those aroma into the humidifier water pans. I am sure the mist produced will ensure that the rooms will be filled with its smell.
This will be something exciting and I hope by year end the number of birds entering the BH from 7:00pm till 8:00pm will double.
Will keep my blog readers posted.
If you wanted to try my technique in deploying the wet floors in your BH please call 017 755 1318.
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