The Fake Nests Fatal Attraction !!!

(The fake nest being used as nest base)

I was sorting some new pictures taken at Sungai Rambai, Melaka BH.

This BH was revamped a few months back and I can see lots of new tenants on all the three floors.

Their favourite spots are mostly on those fake nests.

For this particular BH they love the 90* angled fake nests.

They simply love the corners and I secretly installed them to actually trap them.

My term trap is nothing more than forcing them to quickly be the BH tenant.

From all the observations made in all the BHs I have revamped, fake nests are their favourite place to erect their nests.

One main reason is that the fake nests will act as their foundation and to these new couples they are very new in nest making.

With very little experiences the fake nest will actually help them in starting up.

Try to look at the chronology on how they start using the 90* corner nest:

1) This picture is to show that they have left a marking (a feather) at this particular location.

2) The nest few days the couple who have adopted the fake nest will start to spread their saliva on the nesting plank and the fake nests.  You can see their feathers both on the plank and the fake nest.

3) The saliva marking will soon become thicker and additional feathers are spread to strengthen the scent so that others will not hijack the fake nest.

4) The nest become thicker and you can see the curve of the hardened saliva.  All in all the bird will erect a kind of wall so that the eggs will not falls to the floor.

5) The nests wall seems to grow to about 1 inch high.  If you look from the top you can easily see that they put very little attention to the base since the fake nest formed like the floor of the nest.

The nest now is ready to hold those eggs.

6) The couple will lay two eggs once they feel that their eggs will stay inside the nest.  They will take turns to incubate the two eggs.

7) The eggs hatched and the couple will raise their babies until they can fly.

8) A baby clinging to the fake nest.  Once they reached 45 days old they will take their first flight out of the nest.

What the above pictures tells us is how those fake nests can help our new couple to quickly adopt our new BH.

Using fake nest these wild birds will be able to start their first nest at a much faster rate.

Remember what I keep telling BH owners about what happened once their lay their first egg.

Yes usually they will be your permanent tenant until they die.

Those fake nests served as your accelerators.

So if you want to quickly populate your BH try to help your new tenants.

Give them as many fake nests as possible.

You need to remove those fake nests once the couple used it for at least one time.