Monday, February 21, 2011

Do I need an Improvement now or do I wait?

It's been two months of operation. It 's a very long and torturing 2 months with nothing to do but wait with anxiety. The number of tenants are too low, not up to my expectation.
It might due to the wrong season or it might due to the design of the house or etc.

I have to admit that when I designed this house, I didn't take into consideration of the wind factor.
My last visit, I found that the wind during this month is too strong, most birds will play at the South side of the building to avoid the strong North-East wind.
My partner suggested to open a small entry hole on South side to observe the birds' behavior. And as suspected, we found that the number of new birds fly into this new hole is more than those fly in from the open roof. But at night, the old birds still came back from the open roof entry hole. My bird house is in the foraging area, so there are birds around almost every day in the afternoon.

We also found that my partner birdhouse, same as mine, located in the East side, Gulf of Thailand, has no increase of tenants during last month. It was increased at an average of a hundred birds per month for the last 7 months. On the contrary, another friend's birdhouse located at the West side, Andaman sea, has more increment during last month.
So season or wind direction is definitely a factor.

See the video of my current design with open roof type. Birds encounter very strong wind when fly above the open roof. Left side is East, front side is North.



So to improve on the wind factor, to make birds feel safer when approaching the entry hole, I am thinking of two types of renovation.

Type A, just build up a wall, 1.2 meter high on the East side of the open roof, to shield against the North - East wind. For the below video, right side is East, front side is South or just remember that staircase side is West. Sorry for the inconsistent.



Type B, to seal up the open roof, and open two new separated entry holes at North side and South side as suggested By Khun Harry in his blog. But in this case, my big roving room from the original design will go down the drain!
Stair case side is West side.



I am proposing these two revisions to my partner, not sure whether he will agree to either of them or not.

Any comments from the readers are most welcome.

12 comments:

  1. if i were you i would do nothing for the next 4 months...This is a classic case of CHEATING heart

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  2. Ok, more patient.
    Thanks my friend.

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  3. I'm just curious. Why did you use open roof entrance in the 1st place? Was is because the BHs around your area are all using open roof?

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  4. Because my partner 's house use open roof with good result.

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  5. Don't change anything !!!
    PATIENCE, PATIENCE, PATIENCE !!!
    That's the main key!!!
    Do not spoil your already good things.

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  6. Ok, pal.
    Thanks, will be more patient.

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  7. as u say ur bh in foraging area,
    the birds are surrounding,

    i agree with stay cool with ur ori plan,
    2 month-period is too short to judge the plan.

    i m nt sure abt your thai season,
    mine is in Malaysia, I do have new bh,
    the growth of new tenants in new bh is still slow from Nov till now =(

    just my sharing

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  8. Thanks.
    Right now, BH in the East hardly see any birds play during the day.
    In the west, birds play every day.
    Mine happened to be in the East, sigh!

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  9. I will not go for option 1 as the 1.2 mater wall will block the flying parth from east. Option 2 will not be a good idea also as it will seal up your current tenats. Your BH actually attract quit a number of birds & you should focus pulling the birds into the BH. you may try sound change method (change you sound every 2 to 3 hours). Just my 2 cents opinion.

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  10. Thanks Javen, will not do anything at the moment.

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  11. My suggestion is stay put.., dont make any changes,your design is already good.
    my observation, birds will not have problems with open roof entry even during windy season. but birds (young birds) will have difficulty with window type entry during strong wind.
    (wahoowahi@yahoo.com)

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  12. Thank you so much, wahoowahi, for your valuable input.

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