My Visit To Pontinak: A Summary !!!

The more you travel the more new things you see and learned.

This was what happened during my five days trip to Pontianak Indonesia.

The seminar on "Strategi Jitu Mengikat" went well with more then 67 attendees from all over Indonesia, Brunei and Malaysia. I was surprised that there were at least 15 Malaysians among the 67. Two from Brunei and I came to know that they found the seminar from my blog.

The seminar content was very much similar with the one I attended in Pulau Kapas except that there were a few new pictures, video clips and articles that were interesting to view and learned.

The one that attract me most was a picture showing the use of wall nesting planks that are shit protected by using a thin strip of aluminum shade. The whole idea is when your BH is totally full U can actually install this wall mounted nesting planks that can increase your nesting areas by more then 30%.

Pak Hen introduced a very interesting idea about embedding the sound of water stream into your internal bird sound. This is something unusual and his idea was that those birds will feel peaceful and at the same time it depict the cave sound.

One more interesting Tip was about the use of those hospital drips as your aroma application gadget in your BH. Hmmm very interesting and these is one of the gem when your wife is a chief nurse.

I visited a place that was classified as "Walet Sentral" located about 1 1/2 hour drive from Pontianak main town. The Location was Sungai Pinyu. There were a cluster of BHs at one spot. Each seem to doing well but during my stay there were only a few that were seen flying around.

I also was given an opportunity to visit a DIY birdhouse build by The Chandra Family. Located about 45 minutes drive from Pontianak town at a place called Jungkat Beach. The building was done by minimum consultation and yet within just 6 months the number of bird nests was as high as 60 pieces. Unbelievable but it was true.

One of the Chandra junior was with us for the next few hours and he claimed that the success rate of any BH built in Pontinak is more then 90%. Just compare with us in Malaysia where the success rate is just about 20-30%.

This young man, who used to hate BH, now become the man to watch. He now planned to develop his father's piece of land located just facing a Muara (river flowing into the sea) to be as good or better then the "Sungai Pinyu Swiftlet Central". It shall be more systematic and well planned so that the birds have a 7 Stars hotel treatment. Sungai Pinyu Birdhouse owners, just watch out for this young man.... The best was that I was invited to be a part of the idea. Hmmmm need to carefully consider the offer.....

While waiting for my connecting flight at Jakarta Airport, took a short trip to Eka Walet Toko at Green Ville Street to meet Ibu Ida (the operator) and got from her some onde2 (products) consisting of a few new external birdcall sounds, books, aroma and saw those bird eggs being incubated for their babies. A set of young hatchings were there too......

Overall the trip was a very good experience and the number of people who claimed to read my blog was something I am very proud of. One of them is a SPA owner call "Exiotic" located in Jakarta Angerrek area.... Hmmm might want to scrub my body after a hard day at those BHs. Pak Ben Chai, Pak Victor, Pak Oswald, Pak Yong, Pak Alvin & Partner were all there for their second round.....

The next seminar was indicated to be in Jakarta. Tentative date is December 2008. Just read my blog regularly and I will surely anounce. I will not miss this apportunity for a Million ....

This Friday Down South While On Sunday Up North !!!

I think I need to employ a driver to shuttle me up and down from one birdhouse to another.

This Friday there is a very strong possibility that I will be going down south to Segamat, Johor.

My plan is to take a closer look at one of my adorpted birdhouse which I quite like its design (tunnel type) and of course the owner.

Mr.L have been very cooperative in allowing me to install a few new gadgets that I have found in the market. These items are said to be a very usefull to bring in those wild swiftlets into a newly build birdhouses.



I have with me the specially made fake nest that I wanted to install. Two will be suitable for corner covers while three will be as fake nests.

I want to install myself and observe their progress.



Beside this new things, Mr.L have followed most of my advise and from what he indicated his birdnests count are increasing steadily. I will be doing my own check on the matter and at the same time need to further improve his nests counts.

On Sunday, will be driving up North to Kedah. Just being invited to be available for the GAPH seminar in Alor Star on Tuesday the 29th April 2008.

Since passing my home town, will make a short visit to my BH and install the same fake nests and corner covers.

Have drawn a sketch of my new insect breeding crib. Will discuss with my carpenter to make the necessary fabrication.

Speaker At GAPH Seminar In Ipoh !!!

Received an unofficial invitation to deliver a speech at Ipoh GAPH seminar on Sunday last week.

After some thought I confirmed acceptence of the invitation and prepared the powerpoint slides for the purpose. I took about two hours to get it ready.

Once ready passed the document to the Organiser for vetting.

I was so pleased that the presentation material was cleared with very little corrections.

Yesterday morning, at 5.30am, started the journey to Ipoh with two blog readers who was keen enought to join me for the two hours drive.

We reached Ipoh at around 7.30am and managed to taste Ipoh kopitiam breakfast.

At 8.30am reported to the seminar and got the two guys checked in to participate as participants.

I did not mentioned to them that I will be one of the speaker for the day. I waited until being announced by the Organiser. (Frankly I was still not sure that I am one of the speaker. If not, MALU only ???)

The seminar started sharp at about 9.00am and the room was fulled with about 40 swiftlet farmers attended.

Since I have attended two similar talks before, there were nothing much to learn but the announcement about Bank Pertanian Malaysia being privetised was some news. They now called themself as Agro Bank as from April 1st 2008.

I waited for turn and since I was the last speaker, I find the day was very slow to reach my turn.

At about 4.00pm, the announcement was made and I pushed myself onto the center stage. Keep praying that this maiden talk will be well received and will not put those tired participants to sleep.

I took exactly one hour to cover all the topics and wow it was beautiful. Dr.R was the first to congratulate me on the topics covered and the way I delivered. According to him that it was very impressived and lots of important points both for the newbies and those who are planning to expand their BH farms.

Well there were many more participants who walked up to say thank you for the informations covered and they have asked me to post the topics covered onto my Swiftlet Farming blog.

The two guys who came together with me was suprised with my topics and they love the way I could remember the things that I covered without looking at the slides presentation.

I know, deep in my heart, I can be a good speaker and this opening talk might be the beginning of my involvement in more GAPH Seminars. Hope to receive more invitation from Dr.R.

Pak Hen And His Fellow Swiftlet's Farmers !!!

Just wanted to post this special picture that was taken using my canon powershot.

In total there were 38 people attended the course.

I was very lucky to be one of the student but feel very honoured to be given the opportunity to do my part as an invited speaker. One hour was more then enought as a starter.

Pak Hen talks were mind blower. He was so immaculate with answers that you can satisfy all your needs. He spend hours with all of us without making any complains what so ever. The discussion session ends mid night and we talk and talk until all of us have nothing more to ask him.



His article about breeding of insect to feed those hungry swiftlets, was my favourite. I keep shaking my head listerning to those things that the Indonesian farmers will do just to invite the wild birds to stay in their farm. The insect breeding is no longer something that you should consider, but is a must, if you want your house to be populated. Examples were given to make all of us understand how important it was.

I am amazed at the method of breeding. They even used a specially built hut for these insects. The hut have special holes allowing blown air to catapult the insects into the BH at a specific time of the day.

Just unbelievable and mind blowing. I now come to realise that there so many things to learn and there is nothing better then learning from a third generation BH owner from Indonesia.



We also have a special guess, Mr.A, who joined us to explain about his birdhouses. Mr.A have one of his house with red nests. He did no do anything to get those red nests. I believed those Red nests were due to Mr.A laziness to clear those birdshits on the floors of his BH nesting rooms. He admitted that he was lazy. He suspected that those thick amonia smell must have caused the nests to turned red.

Pak Ir, is someone that I dearly look at him as my father. A very gentle and pleasent to talk to. Also eager to explain all the things that he have gone thru and he claimed that one of his birdhouse was buglarised for 11 times. The truth is that he never give up.....



Pak Jeff, was very kind to have all of us together for the first time. His arrangement for the two days were perfect. No hiccup and no blunders....

The food were very good and the beach were a jewel. I miss going for my snorkling.

After the seminar we took a boat ride to visit a cave on the island. What we saw was not swiftlets but bats. They flew out and those sea eagles came in to snatch a few for their babies, I guessed.

We also went to visit a few birdhouses on the mainland. One, close to the port, was using those soundless methods of attracting birds.



I was very impressed with it and vow to do some investigations on the gadget that were made available to me at a price. I plan to do some testing in Kuala Lumpur and make a detail reports for all my blog reader. So far got 5 orders for the black box.

Sorry Again, For Not Writting For 3 Days !!!

So sorry that for the last three days I was totally away from home attending the Seminar at Pulau Kapas in Kuala Trengganu.

To those who have orderred some stuff for their BH, I will try to sent them shortly while those who are waiting for more interesting articles, please wait for my new articles that I have gathered while in Trengganu.

The trip was pretty tiring but the seminar was worth the effort.

Meeting Pak Hendry Mulia in person is something that I am very proud off.

Beside the two days on the beautiful resort island, managed to stay in Kuala Trengganu for two nights watching those birdhouses in action. Both in the morning and the everning the activities which those swiftlet performed were incredible.

The more you watched them the more you want to see their behaviours and those sweet love music chasing each other.

On the last day of my stay in KT, managed to buy a trial unit of the Ultrasonic Sound Converter, a gadget that can minimise noise pollution for your birdhouse.

I will be cover the product descriptions and a trial test report once completed.

Also visited a total of about 7 BHs in Trengganu including Tirok's.

A very tiring trip however the people I met and the new ideas forwarded by Pak Hendry and Pak Irman is worth every minutes of my time in Trengganu.

Just wait for all the things that I will be writting for all of your to read...

I have to than Pak Jeff for all the efforts in putting the seminar together. A very friendly and jovial person which I always likes to be with. Also met are Pak Ben of Miri, Pak WaletKedah, Victor, Justin Tan, Zul, Tiruk, Nik, Wan, Oswald, Alvin, Patrick&Wife, ParrickPng, and many more ...

GAPH Seminar At Mandarin Court, Kuala Lumpur !!!

Been running around to a few places to help my blog readers to attend the Seminar.

So far six blog readers have confirmed their seats. Most of them are from Klang valley but one was from Kota Baru, Kelantan.

The guy from Kota Baru arrived last night and put up at Midah Hotel.

Met him for a cup of coffe and told him to be ready for me to pick him up this morning.

I hope the other five will be at the registration counter before 9.00am.

Will see how big the crowd looks like.

I might stay for the talk or may be not depending on the schedule for the day....