One of my biggest achievement during this February 2014 visit to Kota Kinabalu, was to help a BH owner whose BH is in Papar.
"Pak Harry I nearly wanted to give up until I met you. It was not growing and I don't know what to do and who to ask for help. Lucky for me to have met you and you volunteer to help".
I remember the above sentence since he keep repeating them again and again.
The first time I came was about 2 years ago.
There were little nests inside and no birds were flying above its rooftop.
I took some time to get his confidence so that he will follow my advises.
The second trip was the key to his success.
I squeezed my time just for him but when I landed in KK he was in Miri attending a seminar.
"Pah Harry sorry I cannot be with you but I have arranged with my partner to pick you up and go to my BH."
I told him that I don't really care who takes me there but my mind was made up to help him with his BH.
The moment I entered I discovered how bright the nesting room was.
There was no room or partition wall inside the 20'X60' BH.
The number of internal sound tweeters were little.
There was not a single internal sound tweeters inside the nesting room.
No fake nests and the BH was too dry.
My first mission was to provide a rough sketch how he should darken the nesting rooms.
I added a list of things that he should carried out.
He complied and followed nearly all what I prescribed.
One year plus after that the nest jump up to 45.
I told him that I was not happy with it and wanted to visit another time.
I was cock sure that there must be some thing not right and at the same time wanted to try out something new at his BH.
Today I found out that the reason why but the BH now have lots of flying visitors above its roof.
Not a bad progress but it could have been better.
I told him that he needed to invest a bit more to carry out the followings:
1) Add one more partition wall inside the hall areas. This will help to darken the VIP room further.
2) I wanted him to erect one more wall at the main roving area to block direct sun light to the door.
3) I also recommended the installation of a Hexagonal tweeter.
4) If he have extra cash he should consider to rent at JCB to open a pond on the swamp land just in front of his BH entrance hole. The pond will be attractive to those swiftlet and they can be easily lured into his BH.
The day at his BH I got him to clean a selected set of nesting planks and later applied with the liquid pheromone.
I told him that if after two months the nests number multiplied by 50% his should proceed with the next step.
I wanted him to clean the rest of those planks and apply with double concentration liquid pheromone.
I changed his external sound and he was very pleased with the number of swiftlet responding to it.
My gut feeling was that this BH can be easily populated if he follows all my recommendations.
It has a potential of 2000 nests within the next 5 years.
All he needed to do is to continue with the liquid pheromone treatment and make sure there is no owl attacking the BH.
He should also carry out a Force Harvest once a year.
I am very happy for him and will monitor his BH progress.
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