Swiftlet City: One Of The Best Spot For Birdnest Visitors !!!

During my last trip to Kuala Selangor with Mr.A, last Tuesday, I got Mr.A to drop by at Sungai Rambai Swiftlet City Complex, about 5 kilometers from a small town called Batang Berjuntai, Selangor.

It was the best decision that I ever made.

Main reason being the birdhouse complex was operational and open for public viewing. The new complex was officially opened three days after CNY.

Met Mr Victor, the project Superintendent, and he was very kind enought to personally took us for a close view of the whole complex.

Usually the fee to enter the house is RM 6 but we were given the exception.

We entered the building from the front and on the ground floor there were some wild birds kept in cages. There were at least 10 types (not swiftlets).



On the second floor we were made to enter a dark room where we can view those wild swiftlets flying around in the complex. The room was with a special see thru glass and you can clearly see the inside of a birdhouse.

A very good treat to those who never have the opportunity to enter a swiftlet house before...

The complex was specially designed to attract tourist to view the birdnest industries in Malaysia. Syabas to Yu He management.

After the short tour we were taken to the other building at the back where birdnests were processed. They also served birdnest soup for you or your guests to try. Plain soup will cost you RM48 while laced with coconut is RM 50...


I am looking forward to have my vietnamese friends to visit the place on March 15th, 2008. Victor advised me to be there at 6.00 pm to 7.00pm to see those swiftlets coming back to roost....

Marvellous ..................

Back From Tanjung Malim ....

What a beautiful day ....

In the morning managed to locate the wholesale outlet dealing with birdnests. The only shop that import their raw materials from East Malaysia, process them and pack in West Malaysia.

It seem that the outlet is the only shop in Kuala Lumpur that allows visitors, mainly from mainland China, to view how those nest are being processed, dried and pack into those beautiful boxes. All their nests are cave nests.



They have the white colored (one year's old), the stripe with pink color (the two years old) and the red colored (4 years old before being harvested).

I was attended by Miss Elaine and whe promised to give her best attention to my visitors from Vietnam scheduled on March 15th, 2008.

Average price per kilo, processed and packed, was about RM 13,000. Not bad for cave nest. No indication for house nests.

Elained explained that nests harvested from came are more rigid and do not dissolve in hot water even after being boiled for 8 hours. Those house nests (harvest from man made house) should not be boiled more then 4 hours. If you do that they will be completely dissolved in those water.



They housed a fake cave to show how those fake cave nests are being built...

Got a bowl of birdnest soup for my effort.... Nice and sweet ....

At about noon jumped into Mr.M CRV and proceeded to his shop house in TM. Took us one hour to reach there. His shop house was somewhere in Behrang.

The house was strategicly located and there were lots of low lying areas around the area. On the horizon there are virgin jungle plus palm oil plantation estates.

There were two operating birdhouse in the same area however we have no reason to be overly concerned on their functionability. The nearest seem to be badly designed while the second seem to have lost it zest to live (no more birdcall sound).

Spend more then one hour to take various mesuarements and the two floors looks large enought to use the open roof type.



Mr.M wanted it to be specialy designed so that his unit will be camouflaged and nothing should indicate that it is a birdhouse.

The front should maintained as it is, while the back roof need to be opened for the birds inlets. He wanted them to be painted using the same color as the roof...

I am looking forward to be his project Manager. Well need to have his consent .

BirdCall Music : "Awesome" and "Duress"

Two words that I have choosen to name after two of the most powerful birdcall sound.

First is the Awesome.

This is mainly due to the exceptional quality which can bring those birds from a far or even out of the BH to see what is going on.

The moment you switch the tweeter on you will see them flying direct to the source of the sound. They come like ants towards a bowl of sugar. If U are in an open area, you can see at 360* that the are coming. They are AWESOME !!!

Suitable for places near to BH areas.

Tested in Tampin, N9, near a lake. Respond time was about 20 seconds. The number of birds responded were about 600. Some were seen flying above the lake.

Second is the Duress.

This I describe as if the bird's balls, if they do have, were being squeezed. U know what I mean when your balls were squeezed. It feel very painfull but once released you feel very good. He he he ... Oh la la ....

When used in BP the land owner was looking at the horizon waiting to see some birds coming. Actual truth was that those birds were above his head. There were 300 birds circling above. It takes less then 10 second to see the result.

Suitable for open land areas and far away from any BH.

I am so sorry to use these new patented name. They are mine and no body else ... Ha ha ha...

If you want to watch the response please PM or call Harry to demonstrate.

No exchange. Usually pack together with the tweeter. Cost of tweeter is around RM 400 ....

Must pay toll fee and milage ..... and place to stay ..... and yam cha ..... and he he.......

Tommorow Might be In Tanjung Malim and On Sunday In Segamat !!!

Life is getting more hectic and there is always some enthusiast who wanted me to pay a visit to their birdhouses.

I am truly honored and I don't know how to say no ...

Tomorrow was invited to view a shop house in TM. The owner, Mr. M, of the shop house would like to hear my personal opinion to convert the shop house to a BH. At the same time would appreciate if I could provide the best configuration for him to start the detail design works.

I accepted his invitation and will bring along all my gadgets plus measuring tape, compass, camera, my pen, sketch note pad and etc.

I hope within 3 hours I could wrap up the works in configuring the best option for him. I also will be on the look out to see all those birdhouses in TM.

On Sunday, will be in Segamat, Johor. Received an invitation to drop by to help in the activation of the insect powder and the house aroma. The BH owner is Mr. L.

I believed in giving a helping hand to those blog readers who need some pat talks and I am sure they can learn better when I explain in person on all their queries.....

Then again one more blog reader from Seremban wanted to belanja breakfast before I cabut to Segamat ....

Well to make matter worse, Mr V, from BP insisted that I shud stop by to see his BH.....

This is getting very crazy and I hope I can made it ...

Good luck to me ...

A Town With The Name BP !!!

I felt very honored to be invited to visit Batu Pahat (BP) and my host was none other then Mr. Y.

Mr. Y is a retired man and he specializes in Electronic. Speaks little English or Malay but have this unique Chinese dictionary on his new lap top which allows him to translate every single words into Chinese. Hmm just imagine how much effort he took to translate my swiftlet blog (English) to Chinese. He love swiftlet and he admitted that he is a crazy swiftlet enthusiast. Just like me and Mr. A ....



Beside a wonderful host I met three other blog readers who came down to meet me for yam cha. Two from Port Klang and one from Segamat. Thank U and Thank U...

Mr. Y indicated that BP (not British Petroleum) have more then 200 birdhouses. Some are doing very well and of course the majority are not. The town just celebrated it centennial (100 years old) celebration.



I stayed in a simple hotel on the seven's floor. I guess you know what I saw the moment I opened the curtain. Full of those dog house shape extensions on so many of those shop houses below.

In the morning there were many birds circling about the roof top. At least 1,000 of them.

I went down early for a walk. The moment I put my foot out of the Hotel entrance, I saw so many of these wild swiftlet to the left hand side. I quickly move toward the flock and snapped a few of those birdhouses.

They are amazing and even at 9am they are still playing closed to those exit holes.

At about 9.15 am Mr. Y took me to a mamak shop together with my guests.

We then took a trip to a palm oil plantation about 8 kilometers away. Tested but the number of birds responded were too little. We moved to a new side beside a water pond.

The moment I activated the "DURESS" sound the birds simply flew on the top of Mr. Y's car. There were at least 200 of them. Outstanding but I was not very happy with the number. Well I believed most of the birds were deep in those forests.



The land owner, Mr. Y son's Godfather, was amused. He was smiling and enjoying the show. To him this is like a party. Well after the birdcall test he got us a few gunny sacks of local Durian. Hmmm they were very good. Since we wanted to enter a birdhouse we do not want to be too smelly... I am not sure if durian smell will cause lots of stress to the swiftlets.... He he he.

Visited Mr. Y birdhouse and observed lots of interesting design and features that I have never seen before.

The entrance was from the top and bird will fly direct to the middle of the BH. As such the roving room was in the middle and the nesting rooms were located to the left and the right of it. Hmm Hmm very interesting...



Entrance hole (only one) was very big. If I am not mistaken it was 5 feet by 7 feet. Massive and the amount of light penetrating the roving room was great.

I saw some life tree twigs just in the middle of the entrance hole. I told him to get rid of the blockage.

It will be pretty hard to control the humidity. The measuring tool indicated a temperature of 27*C and humidity of 73%. There were no humidifiers.

All the ventilations holes were wide opened. There were about inlet 9 pipes. I told Mr. Y to close all except one. He was about to apply those aroma.

The nesting woods looks alright except that they were not spaced out to the required width and matrix crosses. I pointed that to him but there is no need to be alarm over the matter. Most important is to be careful for his second house which is undergoing construction. I prefer to be designed row of 30 cm apart and cross matrix with 100 cm.

Mr. Y do placed lots of tweeters. He uses those square piezo type. I can see that every corners he will placed one. All tweeters were facing to the birdhouse entrance direction. He is a smart man. I think he do read lots of books, blogs and attended a few seminars....

The only thing that I was not happy about was the distribution of his tweeters placement. Since he do not have many matrix wood most of the corners were at the end or near to the walls and cement beams. As such there were not many being placed in the middle portion of the nesting rooms.

Well I was happy and surprised with the number of bird shits found in both the nesting rooms. There were at least 20 of them and some were with markings, empty nests and a few with babies. The BH was said to be in operations for almost 8 months. The temperature and humidity does not effect these tenants that much but I am sure there would be more if these microhabitat are proper...

Well I strongly believed that the house was quite okay but it could have been better.

Given a choice I will reduce the entrance hole a bit and close some of the passage which allows too much light into the roving areas.

I recommended the activation of those insect powder and taught Mr. Y on how to apply those aroma.

Oh yes, Mr. Y do installed about 10 fake nests. There were a few with signs of birds using them...

The bird call sound was better as compared to the last house I visited and Mr. Y have a few sets with him. I told him to change the set every three months.

There were a list of things that I pointed to Mr. Y and today when I called him he have already take actions on some of those I pointed out.

I am hopeful that Mr. Y's BH will do well and I promised to stay I touch with him on a regular basis....



Special Note: A Tree taken over and become a permanent resident in a shop house. There were at least 5 of them. What a waste !!!!

Trade Marks In Kuala Selangor !!!

The Kuala Selangor swiftlet BH visit and noble mission accomplished.

It was pretty neat to see how birdhouse owner keep their birdhouse sleek and tidy.

Mr. A picked me up at my house in Damansara and proceeded to fetch Mr. Y at a hotel in KL. The three of us proceeded to Port Klang on route to Kuala Selangor. On the way stop at a mamak shop for breakfast. We reached Kuala Selangor at about 11am.

A bit about Mr A. He is one of those who was inflicted with the same diseases like those who read this blog i.e. Swiftlet Flu (Crazy About Swiftlet).



If you should ask him his current profession, his answer will be in the Hotel line. Yes his clients enter from the rooftop. They never pay and every time they finish their job Mr. A will confiscate their belongings (nests).

His mobile phone rings the sound of swiftlets and everyday he talks about nothing but swiftlet. Crazy guy but fun to be with.



Mr. A have with him a birdhouse (BH) on a three stories high building which he used to rent to a tenant paying a merge RM200 a month. After 2 years of tenancy he manage to relocate them to another building nearby and quickly convert the 3rd floor to a BH. He regretted that he wasted 2 precious years....

Anyway I entered his birdhouse for inspection and starts with my routine observations that I usually do.



First, the air in the BH. It was like a fresh air but have a bit of those birds hit aroma. Too thin and I don't feel like a BH.

Second, the humidity. No good I do not sweat for almost five minutes. They are not humid enough.

Three, no measuring gadget to detect the humidity and temperature. Hmm no good. How to know the temperate and humidity accurately?



Four, the bird call sound. Internal sound okay but external not that awesome. The volume was also not very strong ....

Five, the brightness. Looks okay but looking at the amount of light coming in from the roving room it was a bit too bright ...

Six, the room's set up. I was quite impressed with the tunnel concept. The moment the bird enter the house they are directly connected to the tunnel which allows the birds to enter the nesting area without any problem. A very impressive design. What I was not happy about was the size of the tunnel. It was almost 7 feet width. I would like it to be reduced to 3 feet or lesser.



Seven, the nesting area consisted of two portions the back (20 ft X 15ft) and the front portion about 60 feet X 13 feet. The size is okay for the roving of birds.

Eight, the nesting planks. They were well installed and each follows the standard dimension that maximized the usage of nesting space. I like it.




Ninth, the tweeters. All tweeters were those of a rectangular shape type. There were 92 pieces. I am of the opinion that they are a bit too little. I am looking at least 200. Better if it is increased to 300.

Tenth, the tweeter's mounting direction. I was not very sure whether the technician who installed those tweeters knows much about swiftlet ranching. First the way they mounted (wrong) and second the direction where they were facing (some facing directly to the wall, about 1 foot away).



Tenth A, tweeters wire mesh covers. I would prefer all the tweeters are with wire mesh covers. This will helps the birds to have a better clinging surface areas.

Eleven, the corner covers. They are perfectly installed using the wood covers that I have described on my blog. I wish they can be my appointed contractor (only the ceiling wood, please). Neat and perfectly done.

Twelve, any fake nests. I did not see any. It is like a big mouth without any teeth (Mind U my wife is a Dental surgeon). I prefer to see at least 20 sets which I told A to do.

Thirteen, humidifiers. He got two units installed. Both the chicken farm type and operated by analog timer each. The timers were set to operate every hour and daytime only for 15 minutes. (Hmm might be too short). I think the number is too little and I recommended to have the number increased by one. Try not to use analog timer. Better to use a proper hygrostat or perhaps digital timers.


Fourteen, the fluorescent working light. He got only one and working pretty well.

Fifteen, the ventilation holes. There were six ventilation holes that were with about 6 inch diameter plastic pipes. The arrangement were nice but all the holes were widely opened. The first thing I did was to close nearly all using some newspaper. They are not to be open until such time they are ready to.



Sixteen, the passage from the nesting to the roving area looks like a tunnel but they are facing the entrance hole diagonally. It seem the light was so bright for my eyes to open.

Seventeen, the roving room. Well designed and was almost 15 feet by 20 feet. All the walls were painted black.



Eighteen, the entrance hole path blockage. Directly at the back of the unit was another shop that have a high kernel that blocked the flight passage of the BH. I am not very happy at all however to the left of the said tower there seem to have enough roving area (external). I have a very strong feeling that this will be the biggest hurdle in getting those wild birds into the BH.

Nineteen, the entrance hole's size. The entrance hole was pretty big. It was at least4 feet by 4 feet. Too big and it drained out the room humidity, the aroma applied and also too much light entering the roving areas. I strongly believed is should be around 2 feet by 3 feet. Once the house tenancy is big the hole should be further reduced to guard against buglars.

Twenty, the external tweeters at the entrance. Mostly, about four were those of rectangular shape. Two on both sides of the entrance hole sides. Looks okay to me.

Twenty one, the pull tweeters. There were two sets along the corridor toward the nesting rooms. Too little to me. I prefer at least three more sets along the corridor.

Twenty two, the sound players. I see that Mr. A is pretty well organized and now using thumb drive as his music storage gadget. Cool and pretty state of the art. He plays three sets of players...

Twenty three, no CCTV. Not his favorite to install.

Twenty four, security feature. Not very critical at this stage.

Twenty five, bird shit count. Very little ...

Twenty six, Pool in nesting room. Nil.

Twenty seven, insect powder pails. Nil.



Twenty eight, cockroach. There were some signs of their feaces on the floor.

Twenty nine, working ladder. He got one in the unit and made of wood.

Thirty, any birds entering the house when we were inspecting. Yes at least three who flew in.

Thirty one, did the humidifiers works while the inspection was carried out? Yes both did runs.

Thirty two, any nests or its marking? Sorry nil.

Thirty three, external lighting. Installing some flood lights outside close to the entrance hole will be a good idea.



Thirty four, neighbors birdhouses. There were three more in the same row. Just a few meters away there were at least 10 to 20 more. His BH is located in a cluster of BH belonging to many swiftlet enthusiasts. Good at least there are lots of new birds being produced every month.

I guess these are my observations and my main purpose is to let all newbie that these are the kind of things that you should be looking at.

If you can do any better then me then you can be my Sifu... He he he...

I will be making some recommendations but I am pretty sure there will be lots of changes within the next couple of week/month.

How and what will be done cannot be exposed without the owner's prior permission. Sorry for that....

I hope those who would like to check their BH status can do the same like what I did. I am sure a third party will do a better job ...

Going To Kuala Selangor ....

Last night received a visitor from Johor.

He drove up to Kuala Lumpur for the purpose of meeting me and wanting to join my expedition to Kuala Selangor.

Last night managed to take him to Puchong to view a birdnest processing center that is managed by a Malaysian who have a long history in Birdnest Processing.

We plan to visit Kuala Selangor today to get the chance to view a birdhouse owned and operated by a new swiftlet farmer by the name of A...

He is going to pick me up at my home and we then proceed to pick up my friend who came from Johor. Should be in Kuala Selangor by 11.00 am. Just the right time to view the birdhouse.

I am pretty excited to visit this new birdhouse and I hope to check the house properly. Perhaps can diagnose if there is any thing that are not right for the swiftlets.

I hope there is no need to prepare a long recomendations like the one I did for Yong of Port Klang...

Mr A feels that his house is a bit too slow in getting those swiftlets in and he wondered why.

Let see what I can find out and if there are problems then I need to put them in a proper report plus my recomendations so that he can make the necessary arrangements to eliminate or correct them.

I have with me those aromas, insect powder, fake nests and some of those inspection tools to immediately leave my mark....These items will be a kind of items that I will put in all the houses that I visited. It is like writing on the wall with the words "Harry Was Here".

Hope within a few short weeks the house will not be the same anymore. That again shall be subjected to the the house humidity, temperature and the room darkness. Oh yah, the entrance hole must also in the right position and wide enought. On the top of that the roving room have the right dimension....

This trade mark will be a must to all future birdhouses that I am invited to visit...

So just wait for my report after the trip and let me share the points together and see how the progress will be after the visit...

I am planning to visit the house again after one month ....

So You Have Your Birdhouse In Operation !!!

Getting your birdhouse operational is something that is not that difficult.

However to get those wild swiftlets into your house and of course force them to stay and built their nests is not a piece of cake. They are tought nuts to crack and you have to get ready with as many techniques and ways to let them stays.

I was recently on the phone with one of my blog reader and at that time he was in his birdhouse. The house have been in operation for almost 6 months and there are no sign of birds nest marking at all.

The weired thing that happened is that there are lots of birds flying above the house but they refuse to come in. What do you think is wrong Harry???

I was not there to perhaps give my opinions but given the opportunity to visit the house it might be easier to make some comments.

Let us try to use some logic to help our friend .......

1) The house is a newly completed three stories high shoplot located in an area where there are already a few successful birdhouses around.

2) The house design, is as per his Sifu specifications. His Sifu is acclaimed to have a good track records.

3) The sound system is perfect. Or else how come there are so many birds circling above the how every morning and everning. At least 200 of them....

4) The temperature and humidity is assumed to be okay. They are within the required range. According to him ...

5) The nesting rooms are within the 2 lux darkness specification. Sorry do not have any tool to prove ...

6) The roving area is okay but a bit too small ...

7) The entrance is a dog kennel type and is facing northeast. How come to the north east? Frank answer: I don't know .... Size not sure ...

8) There are a few spots of birdshits below three tweeters ....

9) The only setback is that he have never make any effort to introduce any new things in the house.

So what do you think is the possible cause of the birds not coming in?

Frankly there are a thousand and one reasons but since he is so confused I have to cool him down. I told him not to jump into any conclusion but analyse what are the possible causes of those birds not coming in to stay ...

The good point was that there were many birds around and they responded very well to the sound he played. But how come they they refuse to come in and stay. Hey you wild birds come in la and stay. Don't play play outside and too hot out there. Come in and lim kopi and make yourself at home.(This was what went in every new birdhouse owner's head).

It can be that the external sound is so beautiful but his internal is not right ...

It can be that his house cement and wood smells are too strong ....

Even if the bird entered his house, the roving area is too small ....

The entrance hole is wrongly placed and it is a bit too small ...

The number of tweeters in his house is not edequate ... Just too little ...

At night the house is so hot (close to 32*C) and he did not monitor them at all. Don't know how to use the temperature and humidity sensors ...

The humidifier hygrostats were not functioning. It simply do not switch on even you set it to be activated at 85% humidity ..

He opened too many of the ventilation holes. He thought that the house is a bit too stuffy. If the house is good for him, it must be also good for the wild birds ... I am sure he was wrong ....

His birdhouse floors are just too clean, spick and span, no bird shits, not water containers, so amonia smell and nothing .... He thought that the house is nice to him so it is nice to the birds ... He was wrong again ....

You never want to introduce those insect powder in the roving room. The smell is like those thing that you vomit ... Yuk .... Again he keep thinking that whatever is good for him it is good for the wild birds ....

He entered the birdhouse every day at 5.00 to 7.00 pm to carry out the bird count inspection. That's the only time he was free after works. He was never informed that that was the time that the birds will start to come home to rest ... So when they saw him they got scared and move out ....



When he entered the house he brought his wife and she was fully sprayed with the latest CHANEL COCO perfume suitable for everning ware that he bought her. Her smell was so sexy but he did not realised that the birds hates it. So his wife cause some stress to the wild birds .

Well he was a heavy smoker and without realising, due to normal habits, he took out those cigerrate packs and starts to puff inside the birdhouse . There U go again .... He created more stress to the birds ...

And the list continue and on and on and on.

So Harry what is the best solution?

Ai ya, I don't know. If you don't make any effort to know, why should I tell YOU ???

The best answer is to read my blog and if you found something special them you print them. Read them before your go to work, before you make love, before you go so sleep and before you start your journey to your birdhouse.....

Perhaps try to regularly update his knowledge by attending some seminars.

Buy some books that can help to improve his knowlege.

The best is to mix around with other birdhouse owners in town. Have frequant teh tarik sessions with them. Share and learn from them ...

Worst case call Harry ....

Who know he might be of help ....

Or else call Jeff, or Dr Chris or Pak Hen ...

He he he he ....

Sorry, I Was Away For Two Days !!!

I have to say sorry to all my blog readers. I was on an unpaid leave to tend to my birdhouse in Sungai Patani, Kedah.

Since I do not have the luxury of carrying a laptop, I lost one where someone broke my car window, I prefer to write using my desktop at home in Kuala Lumpur.

Just arrived home, and now is at 11.38 pm. Let me put my wife to bed and will come back to talk a bit about my birdhouse......

Just pause for a while , OKAY ????



I am back ......

The trip to SPatani is always an enjoyable one and this time got to meet a few birdhouse owners and one newbie.

Frank and Andy are both from Kulim, Kedah. They dropped by to say "hello" and pick up one container of Insect Powder. Goh & Wife from Alor Star also came down to say hello and pick up four of the insect powder containers.( I was doing a favor to carry home for them)

Giap who currently stays in SPatani also drop by to say hello.

All the four stayed for a few minutes to have a little chat and once done they were very happy to have a new friend, Harry The Nice and Friendly Swiflet Guy....

My birdhouse became the nomination centre on that day ....

I spend nearly four hours at my birdhouse. Some of the things that I did was to install three new digital timers for my humidifiers (the hygrostats were not working). Set the timing for all the eight settings available and once installed did lots of checking that they works. While that was on I was monitoring the humidity and temperator indicator. They looks fine to me. Both the nesting room temperature and humidity improve everytime the humidifiers are switched on....

I also checked my insect powder solution. The pail I activated three weeks ago were with lots of small flies and there were lots of worms in the pail too. The worms is about one centimeter length and looks like a normal house fly lava. The only bad thing was that my caretaker (my bother) put too much water and I have little choice but to throw away the excess water together with those precious worms.

I prepared a new one and this time got the caretaker to see how I mixed and he is not supposed to put in too much water every three weeks. Half a liter is okay but must stir them well....

I was also very concern over the birdcall CD players. One of them is not working (internal sound). I tested three to four times and it just could not read the Disc. Dismentled the unit and got a new replacement. It works...

The data room was a bit too stuffy ,with little air moving and no wall clock.... Got a fan and a wall clock from Tesco ....

The humidity and temperature looks okay (above 80% and around 28*C). It gets better everytime when the humidifiers, two units, runs concurrently. Well I am thinking of increasing one each for the two floors.

The nesting rooms smell is less pungent like before but there are still some. I instructed my caretaker to finish the last half liter of aroma onto the wall (downstairs). We did that just before we finish the inspection....

I have this strong opinion that these Aroma do works. My recomendation for newbies who have just set up their birdhouse in operation, just use the aroma for as long as you can. Stop using it once your birdhouse is at least with 100 nests or more ....

For a brand new unit use the Cement and Wood smell eredication aroma for at least three months and after that use the standard aroma until your house have 100 nests or more in them..

You will not regret it ... To prove to you that it works, just read this email that I have just received:

Quote:

Hai Mr Harry..

Saya telah menggunakan aroma yang dibeli dari satu kedai bagi menarik perhatian burung di dalam rumah burung saya. Lebih kurang seminggu selepas penggunaan aroma tersebut terdapat lebih kurang 10 nest base di dalam rumah burung saya. Sebelum ini hanya terdapat satu nest base sahaja. Ini membuktikan aroma juga memainkan peranan bagi menarik lebih burung ke dalam bangunan anda. Saya membeli aroma tersebut pada harga RM xxx.00/liter.
Unquote:

Translation:

(Dear Harry,
I have just applied my birdhouse with a kind of aroma which I recently bought to attract those wild swiftlet. Just about one week after applying the aroma I saw about 10 nests base in my birdhouse. Before this there was only one nest base. This proved that aroma do play a very important role in attracting those swiflets into my new birdhouse. I bought the aroma for RM xxx.00 per liter.


The fake nests seem to be doing okay out of ten, three have sign of being tenanted ..

The nest build on nasi lemak styrofoam have become bigger.

There were many nests with babies and they looks fine.

The water was running okay and the electricity bill is up to date.

I am pretty happy on the progress to far and I am looking forward for my next trip home. I have this special arrangement with my wife and she fully supported my idea. You know why? While I tend to my birdhouse, she will be having fun playing poker with her family members. Hai yah, Chinese is still a Chinese. The blood is so thick with those gambling chromosone. He he he......

As long as she is happy with those poker sessions, I am also happy and glad to be with my birdhouse....

My aim is to reach that finishing line sooner then my neighbors ....

Those who are in the same race, let do together ....

There is nothing to loose to run side by side ....

Kosmo News: Two Arrested For Smuggling Birdnests !!!

News clipping from Kosmo (Local Language newspaper),on how two birdnest smugglers tried to evade taxes and without proper lisences.

A process birdnests is said to be worth more then US 4,000 per kilogram in China.

A good referance to read and never to carry birdnests out of Malaysia without proper lisences and paying of taxes.

KUALA LUMPUR, Selasa 22 Jan.--

Taktik dua lelaki untuk melancong ke luar negara bermain golf akhirnya terbongkar setelah mesin pengimbas di lapangan terbang mengimbas barangan yang cuba diseludup keluar. Imbasan terhadap beg mereka termasuk beg kayu golf menemui sarang burung laying;layang bermutu tinggi bernilai kira-kira RM70,000.Penemuan itui hasil kerjasama polis bantuan Malaysia Airport Berhad Terminal Tambang Murah LCCT Sepang dengan Jabatan Perlindungan Hidupan Liar dan Taman Negara (Perhilitan).

Menurut Pengarah Perundangan dan Penguatkuasaan Perhilitan Dr Sivananthan Elagupillay, pemeriksaan menemui 14 kilogram disyaki sarang burung laying-layang gua (edible-nest swiftlet - aerodramus fuciphagus) bernilai kira-kira RM70,000.

Kedua-dua lelaki terbabit yang berusia 40 an kemudiannya ditahan. Mereka diikat jamin RM2,000 setiap seorang sehingga dihadapkan ke mahkamah 12 Februari depan.

Menurut beliau, penyeludup biasanya menggunakan taktik mengisi sarang burung itu dalam beg pakaian, beg sukan, serta kotak dan diisi dalam plastik hitam.

Malaysia merupakan antara pengeluar terbesar dunia selepas Indonesia serta Thailand dan mendapat permintaan tinggi terutama di China dan Hong Kong.

Sarang burung layang-layang bernilai tinggi di pasaran antarabangsa mencecah sehingga RM 5,000 sekilogram. Bulan lalu, barangan serupa bernilai kira-kira RM 780,000 dirampas di lokasi sama dan lapan lelaki ditahan.Jika sabit kesalahan boleh dikenakan denda tidak lebih RM 3,000 atau penjara tidak lebih 3 tahun atau kedua-dua sekali di bawah seksyen 68 Akta Perlindungan Hidupan Liar 1976, akta 76.

Hope you enjoy reading the article.

In summary, two person were caught at LCCT (low budget airport terminal) carrying birdnests about 14 Kilograms worth more then RM 70,000 by putting them in their golf bags.

When their golf bags were inspected, there were no golf sticks but birdnests.

The moral of the news is that do not take any risk by carrying birdnests with you when you travel out of the country. If you do, make sure you obtain the necessary lisences and pay the required taxes. Don't be stupid to smuggle using a golf bag .. He he he

Caution: Never Carry Birdnests (Raw or Processed) Across the Border !!!

I just thought of writing this subject matter so that all my blog readers are safe when they travel.

I was with a blog reader from Ampang, Selangor and he expressed his caution about crossing borders carrying raw or processed birdnest.

Recently a traveler, who thought there was nothing wrong to hand carry some processed birdnests, from LCCT to China.

Upon checking in and about to board their Air Asia plane to China, both were arrested and retained but the custom officers.

They claimed that they carried protected and taxable goods out of the country without making declaration and accompanied with appropriate lisence.

I am not sure how long they was retained but I am pretty sure they missed their plane.

Jabatan Perhilitan do provide lisence to carry these birdnests in and out of the country but you need to apply them officialy. There is a small fee to be paid. You must apply at their office.

Again, there is also a kind of tax lavied on the nests. If I am not mistaken about RM 100 per kilogram.

If you are caught, you will be liable for RM 3,000 penalty or 3 years in prison or both.

There is a draft proposal, yet to be tabled to the cabinet, where the penalty is said to be increased to RM 500,000 or 3 years imprisonment or both.(Mentioned by Dr Rezuan at Seremban GAPH seminar)

This is just a warning and please be carefull when you travel.....

I simply do not want to have one lesser count of my blog readers ...... I love you all.... He he he

(This announcement is sponsored by Harry the Friendly Swiftlet Man)

Just Think Positive !!!

There are many people out there who have these thought of going into swiftlet farming however they are very reluctant because the are afraid of these and that.

These are some of the common excuses that I have come across:

1) Bird Flu my friend.

This is one of the biggest excuse that most people use when we promote to them about swiftlet farming.
Then we ask them: "How many people have died eating birdnest so far?"
Their answer will be: "I don't know".

So what is this fuss about bird flu?

No lah I actually don't have the money to start one. That was just an excuse ....

2) Many Failed.

Oh yes. This is another favorite answer.

"You know I read somewhere more then 80% of birdnest houses failed in Malaysia and Indonesia"

"Who told You?"

"No lah, I heard rumors in the market"

"If the rate of failures is so high how come more and more people keep going into the business? There are so many seminars, courses and talks given every week. Every time these activities are held, they are full house."

"Okay, how come Bank Pertanian Malaysia have recently make available a special Credit facility for this specific business?"

" Oh like that ha, sorry la. I know very little and I just want to say something".

3) Local Council Are Harrasing Birdhouse Owners.

"Harry ah, I read this article where the local council broke the walls of a few shophouses that were turned into birdhouse. So the owner sure loose a lot of his money".

"Do you think that the local council carried out the demolishing of those house for no reasons? I bet those birdhouse owners are inconsiderate. They must be too closed to the residential areas and they keep blasting those birdcall musics at weired time of the night". That explain the reasons.

There are guidelines provided by Jabatan Haiwan and if those birdhouse owners follow them closely, I am very sure their birdhouse will not be torn down.

Anyway there are many more excuses, I am very sure. All are of negative thinking.

To me I just wanted to say that this perculiar business is exciting and chellanging. It is like a kind of race to a finishing line that you can reach, if you equipt yourself with adequate knowledge, within 3 to 5 short years.

Once you hit the finishing line, you will be laughing to the bank....

I came to know that there are many birdhouses in Malaysia that are doing pretty well that during their harvesting time they have to shoo away those birds who refuse to leave the house while the owner are harvesting. Can you see what I see......

Getting a few kilos a month is nothing new any more.

The main task will be how quick you reach or touch the finishing line....

The duration of the race depends on you and not anybody else .....

You determine the pace and you will be the one who will harvest and enjoy the fruits of your labor.....

Best of luck to all of you who already owned their birdhouse....

To those who have yet too, I guess you have not started the race. I also would like to wish you the best of luck. Just think positive......

Blog Readers From Vietnam Seriously Wanted To Visit Malaysia !!!

Last night received a phone call from Mr DH Le of Hanoi, the capital city, of Vietnam.

He have a couple of birdhouses in his country but wanted very much to visit Malaysia...

His intension were more towards bringging some VIPs and serious Investors in Swiftlet Farming to look at the Swiftlet Industries in Malaysia. He wanted it to be a regular trip once the itinery is developed and suitable for Vietnamese people to visit Malaysia. This is more like Swiftlet Farming Tourism.

I am pretty sure there are lots of activities that can be looked into but to start with one is the kepala pusing.

They wanted to view as many birdhouses as possible (external). The would be happy to at least visit a house that are full of nests (inside). They wanted to taste the ready made birdnest soup. They prefer a place that is complete with facilities for Tourist to drop by.

Hmmm hmmmm this is not an easy thing task to do.

Since this is something new to me I would like some suggessions from Malaysian blog readers. Please help if you got any contact on how to add more itineries to these VIPs.

Sam, are U there? I am sure you have something to say.

Thank U Ronnie for your reply. I wish you can talk to Dato Beh for some help...

My niece, who once work with a Birdnest Chain Superstore contacted me and willing to provide a helping hand.

I will be driving up to Kuala Selangor next Tuesday to visit the Sungai Rambai Swiftlet city for some investigation and perhap talk to the owner, assuming he is always there....

Wow so much to do and so little time given ....

What is the Optimum Size of Nesting Box On your Ceiling !!!

I have always forgot to ask myself on the question of "What is the optimum box size of your nesting wood on your ceiling"?

Well we know that the plank should be made of special type of wood. Preferable red Meranti.

We also know that the plank should be with a minimum of 3cm thick and the width of about 15cm (in hot country) and 20 cm (in a cold country).

Now let us examine what is the optimum box size that we need to place on our ceiling and why?

Every single inch available on your nesting room ceiling can be considered a valuable piece of estate land in a big town. They are you asset because if you use them carefully you will get more revenue from those number of birdnest you can harvest per square meter.

Given a chance I will make sure that the ceiling design will be my number one consideration in all my birdhouse. I will make sure that the nesting area will have an optimun lines of nesting planks running perpendicular to the entrance hole and I will crossed them with shorter strips of plank to form a box.

The best box size recomended, which will give you the highest number of nests is per square meter is said to be 30cm X 100 cm box dimension.

Using 30cm X 100 cm box, each 4 X 4 meters nesting areas will allow U to have about 21 perpendicular plank of 4 meters each with three crossed. Total number of planks is 21 + 3 = 24 lines. Two sides for each plank so you will have 24 X 2 = 48 times 400cm = 19,200 cm.

Each nest on the everage will be around is about 12.7cm plus a gap of 1 cm apart. This will give you a total of 13.7 cm per nest. So in a 16 square meter nesting room you can get a maximum number of 19,200/ 13.7 = 1401 nests.

Every kilo on the everage you can get about 120 nests. Thus per 4 X 4 meters with a box arrangement will give you a maximum of 1401/120 = 11.675 kilograms.

If you have 4 of the 4 X 4 nesting areas on one floor you can look forward for a maximum of 46.7 kilograms of white gold on your ceiling.

Not bad at all only if all the planks are occupied of course !!!

The figures calculated are estimates and shall not be used as actual. You might need to deduct those areas used for holes between floors and staircase.

What Is Ideal To You Might Not Be Ideal To Your Swiftlets !!!

I was on the phone last night with my birdhouse care taker (my blood brother). At that time I was having dinner with my new friends at Sunway Pyramid....

He sound very excited and asked me when I am coming back to Sungai Patani, Kedah.

I asked him why?

Well there are lots of birds in our birdhouse. You should come back and see what is happening? ...

Good, that is a terribly good news..... He he he.....

So what else, I asked him?

You know the insect powder sludge that you mixed? They were very dry and I add more water into the bucket ....

Good work, anything else .....

Well after we applied those aroma, both on the walls and floors, the house stink quite a bit and I don't like to be inside for too long.....

Well brother, the ideal environment for you is always not ideal to the birds and like wise anything ideal to the birds will not be ideal to human being ....

So you have to bear those nice aromatic birdshit smell, high humidity and the total darkness inside ...

I build the house to attract the birds not human being mah ..... He he he ...

I was not hard on him but I was just trying to make my points clear about my objectives. We wanted to attract those wild birds and they have their own sets of preferences. In order to achieve that you must make the house ideal to the birds and not human ...

Well I hope I have make my points clear to all my beloved blog readers.....

Anyway, I was very happy to hear from him about my birdhouse have lots of birds and just imagine he visited the house at noon. What about at night?????

I predicted that what he saw was nothing as compared to night time .... There would be at least 5 to 10 times the numbers he saw at noon time .....

Oh Yeh I think I have hit a jackpot .... Ting .........

PS: I guess you can predict where I will be this weekend ..........

How Lucky We Are !!!

Most people have the tendencies of blaming God for any misfortune that they accountered.

Some blame the Government for their poor state of income. They believed that the Government owned them a living just because they were borned and raised in their country.

In Malaysia we become too much dependent on the Goverment subsidies. Our petrol are subsidies, or diesel are heavily subsidies, our roti chanai (malaysian pancake)are also subsidies, the chicken, the rice, the flour, the fish and so on.

We become a subsidised nation and we tend to become a bit lazy to work. This causes many Malaysians, young one, not willing to carry out jobs that are labor intensive. So here we go, we open up the work opportunities to foreign labors. When there are too many forein laborers, we actually kills the works opportunities to the local.

It is sad facts which we created ourself and of course we blame the Government..

Anyway I was just trying to start up this article about how lucky we are in the sense that our country is rich with so many wealths from both above the ground and below the ground.

My back ground is a drilling engineer and I used to work on those floating drilling rigs. I used to stay all night long just to wait for those black gold to start flowing from as deep as 7,000 feet up to the rig floor. Well base on years of working experiences, I would like to tell you that we, Malaysia, have abandunce of oil, gas and gas condensate. In the first place there are a kind of natural sources where the oil and gas are being produced.

Above the ground we are blessed with fertile lands where we can plant another kind of Golden Colored liquid producing plant that we call Palm Oil. This wild plant originated from Africa/South America and now with various technologies using tissue cultures we can have the best fruits per harvest per acre that brings lots of smiles to the plantation owners.

Beside palm oil, we have another kind of Gold that God sent to all of us. This is the Swiftlet Edible Nests (Birdnest).

Our equitorial climate and thick forest seem to be a good source of insect producing environment. There are tons of insects being produced by these green trees every year. They are the best food source to these wild swiftlets.

No one knows where they came from. Some claimed that they are from those caves in the deep interiors, some says that they were breed in Indonesia and some claimed that they are species borned and raised in Malaysia.

Whatever they are from, I for one would like to thank God for bringging them to our beloved country.

The swiftlets seem to have an ability to fly for 48 hours non stop and their speed was said to be about 120 kilometers and hour. This would mean that they can fly anywhere that they wanted to but they prefer to be in our country plus our neighbouring countries, of course. But what about Australia, New Zealand, China, Rusia, Japan, Korea and so forth? I came to the conclusion that they seem to love Malaysia and its neighbouring countries but not those countries mentioned.
They prefer the type of insects produced by the thick jungle and those padi fields plus those big palm oil plantation in the Malay Peninsular....

I am very facinated on their behaviors and after reading so many books I am entrique over their choosing of our country.

This particular picture show you the areas which they are said to be found.



This illustrative map was taken from my reference book called: Swiftlets of Borneo. For more details double clicks on the picture and study what I see. If you can spare some money just get the book from MPH.....

We are blessed with Golden Colors Gifts from that "Guy Above" and they are found both below and above the gound surface .....

We must always thank God for his blessing and those beautiful gifts. To me the best is the white gold, the birdnest, because they are cheap to harvest. Oh ya, just to let you know, to drill one oil well it can cause U something like 30 million US dollars ..... If you are thinking of Palm Oil, well RM10 million at least and lots of hard work ....

So just make a choice which Gold do you want to harvest ......

Nothing Much To Do So Why Not Meet Some New Friends !!!

In the morning I was very busy. Was invited to meet someone at Putrajaya and brief on some interesting ideas about NGV.

By 3 pm I realised that there were so many calls that came in and I need to call all and apologise for not answering.

One of the caller was Mr Kenny from Port Klang. I queried him on his reasons for calling me and how I can be of help.

Well not suprising he admitted that he was so facinated with my swiftlet farming blogspot that he would like to have dinner with me in the everning. Of couse why not especially when he said dinner was on him...

Well I though to myself, since I was free with no program, why not....?

We met at Sunway Pyramid is Subang and proceeded to a restorant on the opposite site of Sunway Pyramid.

The moment we met, he could not hold his breath and wanted very much to have my advise on swiftlet farming. He brought along his partner, Mr Lim.

These were what we talked about:

1) They are currently in the manpower supply business and have been with the business almost five years.

2) The manpower business is not very easy to handle. Lots of problems in looking after the clients and also the labors that they brought in.

3) Due to heavy stress and tension on work related matters, they found that their family are not getting the right attention and more often then not they tend to shout at everybody with the slightest mistakes or errors. Their kids and wife are feeling the strain too and they are suffering quitely.

4) They came to know about swiftlet farming some months back but did very little in getting more informations. (They actually do not know where to get).

5)Recently they came across by blogspot and feel that this might be the best opportunity to meet some one who can provide a sincere advise on how to start their swiftlet venture.

6) I spend more then 3 hours to explain what they should not and what they should do. I gave my advises on how to start their venture and if they need more help I will be very happy to help.

7) We have a lot of fun talking about our passion and I am very glad that I make both of them very happy and smilling all the way home.

I am very sure that they are up to something good and happy to meet some new friends.

Best of luck to both of them and hope they will try to reduce their tension and stress especially when they are at home. There is nothing better then to have a good and happy family.

Seminar On Swiftlet Industries For Birdhouse Owners Plus Site Visits In KT !!!

I am very happy to be invited by Jeff, the Organiser, to this seminar scheduled on March 29 and 30th 2008.

Pak Hendry Mulia (Pak Hen) will be the main speaker plus his countepart Mr Irmant Tijahdi.

The seminar will cover the following subject matters:

1) Best Techniques in Birhouse Building
2) Best Techniques in Bird Entrance Design.
3) How To Manage Your Birdhouse Systematically.
4) Techniques on How to Prepare Your Aroma Solution.
5) How To Increase Your Birdhouse Birds Population.
6) Bright Lights and the Effect On Your Birdhouse.
7) How To Choose the Best Ventilation System.
8) Tips on How to Handle Empty Birdhouses.
9) Tips On How to Apply the Aroma.
10) Tips on How to Be a Sucessfull Birdnest Farmer.
11) Techniques on how to breed insects for your swiftlets.
12) Techniques on how to differentiate bad and good sound qualities.
13) Swiftlet Farming, the Malaysian Perspective ....

I believed this is one of the best seminar organised for year 2008 and suitable for those who already have their own birdhouse, at least one unit.

Beside getting the chance to meet Pak Hen, author of Strategi Jitu Memikat Walet, you will also be given a chance to visit a few birdhouses in Kuala Trengganu.

Meals plus logging are provided.

What I like is the Barbeque together with Pak Hen, Jeff, Pak Irman and myself...

The cost is just RM 1250. Unbelievable and is dirt cheap ....

More detail please contact Jeff at 012 6121212 or 09 6247762.

I will be there to support the organiser and perhaps to met Pak Hen in person.

I fully encourage those who own birdhouse to attend this valuable seminar ....

Arrival of Birdcall Test Units and Insect Producing Powders!!!

I ordered three sets of the test units that was used in Merbok,Kedah.

It arrived today and as fast as it come as fast they were booked by my blog readers.

Hmm hmm.......

It looks like I need to order 6 more sets. These newbies seem to be very excited of having the proven sets and I am sure they will have a good time with it.

The birdcall tweeter set comes with four round tweeters, an amplifier (blaupunk BOA 160), a set of wires for power connection to you lighter socket and wires with socket to connect to your car CD player. It is like a plug and play unit.....

Forgot to say that Victor, from Brunei, have paid for it and I am in deep trouble if I did not sent one to him soon.....

I guess I will get a few more and standby for new blog reader to call and confirm their requirements.....



I collected 10 containers of the insect powder from Tanjung Malim. Right now left with only two.... Goh from Alor Star blocked 4 pails ....

Have placed orders for another 10 containers ....

Those who would like to have any of the above items please email to me your requirements and I will attend on a first come first serve basis ....

How To Increase Your Birdhouse Bird Population By Adorpting Sound Rotation Technique !!!

There are many hundred ways of increasing your birdhouse bird population.

Basically once your birdhouse is completed, operational and all the basic design features are in place you would think that you now can sit down and count the number of birds coming to stay in it.

That is what you might be thinking........

Hmm hmmmm... Well well well, I think you are right but ........

No, I think that should not be always the case.

I believed the fun have just begun ......

You are now given a task to make sure that the house will be tenanted by the wild birds and it must be as quickly as possible .......

You have to be ready with more knowledge on how to improve the house microhabitat and it surroundings.

You might need to open a log book to regularly record on what is happening from the day you open the bird entrance hole and played the birdcall music......

Every single event that happenned from that day must be properly recorded. Reason being, these informations will be very crutial in planning you next course of actions if the birds are still not coming in and stay .....

One important issue that I recommend you to look into, especially when the house is brand new, is to change the birdcall music on a regular basis (every three months).

You need to change both the internal and external in one go.

The main reason being, you want to attract as many new colonies of birds to your birdhouse every three months.

Those sound you blast into the air might means nothing or just a noise to your ears but to the birds they are a rhyzm of loves and excitements.



Those curious birds upon hearing these sound will immediately respond by searching where they come from and if you are lucky they will come into your house for inspection. If they feel good, little stress and safe to bring up their family they might eventually stays with you....

So try to change the sound at least once every three months.....

Remember this is only suitable for newbuilt birdhouses or those old houses facing bird population problem.....

If you already have a successful birdhouse, who cares and you don't need all these recomendations. You might not even need to read this stupid blog . He he he he ....

There is no full gurantee on the solution recommended but most people that have used this technique says that it helps .......

The sound selected must be proper and please make sure that your tweeters are those that do not breaks the sound into something else ......

Birdhouse Renovation: When Is The Best Time To Do Them ???

There are three basic reasons why you carry out renovations on your birdhouse.

They are as follows:

1) You wanted to improve the microhabitat of the house in order to make the house more ideal to your swiftlets. This have to do with the air humidity and temperature.

2) You wanted to renovate the house due some any kind of damage happened to the house or you need to reconstruct of certain parts of the birdhouse. Some examples are: a) The house was leaking b) The wood panels are attacked by termites c) Your birdhouse entrance is wrong d) You wanted to add more light to the house e) You wanted to increase the number of speakers and etc.

3) You wanted to extend the room or add an additional room.

All these renovations if are not carefully planned will cause stress to your tenants (swiftlets) and they might move out ....

The best time to carry out these works are as follows:

A) Start your works in dry season and not the rainy season.

B) Do your work during the time when the birds are out foraging (search for food) between 8.00 am till 3.00 pm.

C) When you do the renovation, make sure you do them in stages and in small portion. Try not to do the extreme. If you do the extreme you might stress the birds and they might not be long in your house.

D) Your workers need to be carefully selected and know how to work. They should be informed in advance on how critical that they work quitely and they will avoid smoking in the house.

E)If you have more then one job to be completed, it is recommended that you give a kind of gap about two days before you start the other job.

F) Try to limit the number of days to about one week. Try not to carry out the job for months.....

G) If you need to carry out more renovation jobs, it is recommended that you allow a gap of at least 2-3 months for the next round of renovation jobs. This 2-3 months period will allow your swiftlets to adarpt to the new surroundings.

Remember, if you are not carefull, you might loose many of those swiftlets that you have been working for. Try to minimise the disturbances and choose the right dry period to carry out the renovations.

You determine the stress level on the birds and my advise is Be Carefull all the time ............

If There Are More New Birdhouses Around You, What Are Your Options ???

Nowadays the number of new birdhouses being build in many towns, big or small, are reaching at an alarming rates.

Just imagine within a few short months, after you converted an abandoned shophouse, there were five more around you and a few more are about to be completed.

You cannot stop them so you have no choice but join the fun of attracting more birds into your birdhouse.

Who do you think will be the winner?

Sorry it might not be you but it will be the unit which provide the best features, both internally and externally, to woo those wild swiftlets.

Once you see them coming you need to improvise various measures where you need to upgrade your birdhouse with better options then the rest.

One of the most important thing that you need to do is to quickly learn more about swiftlet farming yourself. You cannot rely on your Sifu any longer. He might have many other birdhouses to look after. I am not suprised that he was the culprit who built those new birdhouses for his new clients around yours ?????

If you keep relying on him, your house will be eventually be without any sign of increase in new nests count.

The best steps that you need to undertake is to quickly log the number of nests that you currently have. Every month you must do a stock take to count the numbers. Everytime the numbers are taken you need to compare with the previous month. There must be a minimum increase of about 0.83% per month or 10% a year.

If the minimum figure is not achieved, you need to quickly look at all the options that will make the figure move upward. You cannot hope for god intervention. The future of your birdhouse is in your hand. Do something....

You have many choices and these choices are subject to how much knowledge you have accumulated during your involvement with Swiftlets Farming......

Best of luck to you. If you still fail to improve then do not blame Harry. He have already reminded you and he will not going to remind you again.

He he he....

Okay, if you are still in the dark, use your echolocation sound i.e "HELP, I NEED SOME HELP, SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP".

Give Harry a call. Who know he might have some wild ideas to make those figure back on track .....

No promise and no guarantee but I am sure there are many things that we can improvise to improve your birdhouse situation.....

The Swiftlet Warrior

Well since there were no swiftlets responding, Victor decide to be a warrior.

You can now call him the "Swiftlets Al-Aqida" or "Swiftlets Warrior".

Just look at him posting with the long range tweeter gun. The tweeter looks like a Bazzoka.



If you enlarge the picture (double click on it) you will see some dogs admiring his posting. He he he he ........

I have a closer look at the tweeter and these are some pictures that tells you how the unit is made off.

The tweeter can be seen to be made of three sections:

1) The base. This is where the speakers are located. You can see how it looks like from the nozzle.




2) The Neck: You can see that the neck are covered with lots of small holes about 3mm diameter. I think this might be for air to enter while the sound is blasting out the funnel. Also if rain water should enter the tweeter, it will be drained out thru this small holes.

3) The Funnel: Looks like a cone about 2 feet long from the neck. The neck diameter is about 5 inches and once it reaches the end the diameter is about 10 inches.



The sound it produces is awesome. It can easily reach a distance of 500 to 800 meters, no sweat.



If you like to purchase one just PM me ....

Brunei: One More Day With Little Results

Yesterday, February 16th 2008, I was with Victor in Brunei and we went Swiftlet birdcall tour ....

During my last trip we went to Tempurong. This time we moved towards Labi.

Victor indicated that Labi is very closed to the Malaysian border and a stone throw from Niah's Cave and Baram river. He was very sure that there will be lots of those cave birds around.

After picking me up at Lumut BLNG we stopped for a quick brunch. After filling up our tummy we started our jouney towards Labi.

The wheather was not very friendly. It have been drizzling and some time rain.


After about 45 minutes drive, he detoured to a hilling area call Bukit Sawat. The roads were okay but lots of broken spots with lots of soft muds. Victor uses his four wheel power to go thru those soft areas.

The cool wheather was ideal to see both the Martins and the "Swiftlets".

We choose about three areas to conduct our birdcall tests. We have with us the medium range gun tweeter and a normal tweeter. We blasted the birdcall sound and waited for some action.



Both three tests received the same response. The birds will fly above the sound just for a few seconds, about 10 to 15 seconds and immediately gone missing.

Only one that came down to do a close check and that was also one loop around the car. Immediately after that it will never come back for a second look.

What are weird response.

We packed out tweeters and moved towards Labi.



This small town is an agricultural areas where there were lots of flat land with Padi fields and other agri businesses.


This was suppossed to be the nearest assessible area in Brunei that is nearest to Niah Cave. We survey the sky and there were many so call "swiftlets" and Martins.
Since we do not wish to disturb the Long House residents we moved about 1 kilometer away and blast our tweeters.

The same result were observed. The "swiftlets", not many, will fly over the car for just a few short seconds and went missing.

The rain starts to be thicker so we packed our tweeters and moved to Labi.

At Labi we found a nice spot in a Padi field near a hut. Parked the 4 wheel drive and blast the tweeters. We managed to sit and watch the action from about a 100 meters away siting under a shelter. It was drizzling though.



The result was still the same as those tests that we did before. A few curious group of "swiftlets" will dropped by for a few precious seconds and off they go.

We did the observations for almost 30 minutes and the response was not that encouranging we moved on. I got a plane to catch.

Overall all the tests conducted gives similar results. A few "swiftlets" will come overhead for about 10 to 15 seconds and off they go without turning back.

I was expecting more then that. My usual expectation is that the birds will zoom in from all sides (360*) and congrugate above the car where those tweeters are located. They will keep circling until we switch off the sound. I was wrong ...

My conclusion is the same like the first visit made to Tempurong north of Seri Bangawan.

I concluded that the "swiftlets" mentioned are all those of Grass Nest Swiftlet the non edible nest makers.

We stopped for dinner along the way and one of the best way to proof our findings is to get hold of suitable birdcall music that will attract only the serinti and grass swiftlets.

How I wish someone who read this blog will give me the lead on how to get one set.....

Some additional pictures taken during the Labi, Brunei Trip:-

A signboard about the Long House in Labi


A Scenic View along the way.

A Red Seed Pod Creaper Plant.

How the Read Seed Pod Looks Like Closeup...

An Old Bailey Bridge Up For Sale (UK Design) Any buyer? .....

Padi Field Area Where We conduct the Birdcall test....

Wild Rattan Tree (Fresh and Tall)...

Wild Bananas In The Thick Forest ....