I Was In Kluang Johor !!!

I took about 3.5 hours drive to reach Kluang Johor.

Main reason was to inspect a BH owned by someone who called me the day before.

"Pak Harry I cannot wait any longer.  My consultant was given enough time to get the proper number but he failed.  He keep assuring me that give him a bit more time.  20 months only 19 nests.  I have decided to let you help me to increase the population."

That was the summary of what the owner told me on the phone.

I quickly took the challenge and met him at Kluang railway station.

The moment we met we have a cup of coffee and proceeded to the location.

The BH was once a factory lot about 30 feet by 100 feet long.  A one and half stories shop houses converted to become a two stories BH.

It was pretty big and long.

Due to its size the contractor cum consultant must have tried to cut corners and did some common errors.

1) The BH entrance house was a top entry but the most successful BH about 100 feet away was using the side entry with a monkey house.

2) The top entrance hole was very small and I can increase it by at least 50 percent more.

3) The size of the roving area just below the opening of the roof was about 30 feet by 30 feet.  A bit too big and a shear waste of space.

4) Those birds needs to travel at least 30 feet towards a window leading into the BH nesting room.  A bit too far for me.

5) The roof areas seems to have very little gadget to lure more birds to come to the rooftop.

6) The nesting rooms both upstairs and downstairs were too bright. The ground floor were bad.

7) The top floor have about 10 nests while the lower floor only 9.

8) The top floor was with a number of partitioning but was not well done to encourage more birds to stay in side.

9) The ground floor was totally empty without any room.

10) The sound system was the key reason why very little birds came to stay.

11) The setting on the low quality amplifiers were not right.

12) The selection of internal sound was a king of colony sound.  I told the owner to change it to superbabyking.

13) The external sound seems to be similar to his next door neighbours BHs.

14) Nearly 50 percent of the internal sound tweeters were dead.

15) There were only two lines for the internal (upstairs and downstairs) and two lines for the external sound tweeters (outside and inside lines).

16) The BH was very dry even with the use of those mist pumps.

There were a lot more to be reported but let me take care of the rests.

What I need to do now is to come out with a proper recommendation on how to improve the nests population.

The owner is a humble hard working electrical contractor and after listening to his struggles to be what he is today I feel very sad how he grew up as a rubber tapper.

A good man who deserve batter than 20 nests in 20 months.