Pool in the Roving Room

We fabricated a pool, size 3.0x3.2 meter in our roving room on Mar16th,2011.
Since we haven't connected to the municipal water, we left our pool dry when we left on Mar17th.

Before.



Last few day from Mar 24-30th, there were heavy down pour causing flood everywhere. Our pool was filled brimful automatically by the rain water.

After.



Sorry for the poor quality of the picture.

Another Small Opening Wouldn't Hurt.

As written earlier that the rate of increase is not as expected since started operating in Dec18th, 2010, the reason might be
a) wrong timing as it was during the monsoon season
b) no rain in the area at all during last two months
c) the open roof entrance
d) wrong location
e) wrong design

Earlier I have thought of modifying the entrance in several ways. But many readers kindly suggested us to stay put until the weather is milder. Nevertheless, my partner wanted to open a small entrance hole in South side as he saw many birds flying behind the building to avoid the strong wind from the North - East direction. So we did! but still to no avail as the weather was still very dry and windy. But finally during last two days, we have rains, heavy rains. Birds started to show up and the small entry on the South side looked good. Birds kept flying in from 3 pm to 5.50 pm!

Hopefully, more and more birds will come in to survey the house as shown in the following video clips for the coming months.
No need to tell you all that we are so determined to make this bird house work.

Birds flew in mainly from the new opening.


Birds also came from the open roof.


Checking inside.

Monkey Business

Just came back from Bali, Indonesia.
Surprisingly, there is no bird house in Bali. Although I saw few birds in the sky, above the lake, above the Banyan trees.
The weather in the mountain area is very suitable to birds as it is very sunny in the morning and rains everyday in the afternoon.

So there is no bird business there, only found Monkey business in a place called Monkey Forest, near Ubud, Bali.

BH Visit

Just came back from my monthly bird house visit.
The weather there is still very dry and windy.
Rainfalls were everywhere around the area except 20 km around my BH, sigh!

Progress are very slow, only 6 more sweet spots increase from last visit.
The good news is they are quite evenly distributed between 3 floors, at 9, 5, 5 spots for 3rd, 2nd and 1st floor respectively.

Third floor.



Second floor



First floor



Rice tree in the paddy field nearby grew up fast. Within next two months will be harvest time.
It's the time that swiftlets love to fly above the freshly harvested field.
So I guess the prime time for swiftlet bird house in this area should be around May to Nov with two reasons,
a) Harvest time and b) Changing wind direction from North East monsoon season to South West milder wind.

Will have to wait and see whether my guess is right or wrong.


During this trip, also got an opportunity to visit a friend's bird house 45 km away from my bird house.

This BH is only 6 months old with 90 nests! It is stand alone in the palm plantation on the river bank.
This is my friend's second BH, the first one was built in the town center using the same consultant.
The first one is now one year old with only 60 nests.

So it is not necessary that town BH will be better than stand alone.
I asked them for the reason why the town center one was not as good, the answer was "too many BH in the area".

This house is big, 9x32 meter,3 floors, with only 2 amplifiers inside, poorly built, many problem to be rectified right now.
But yet, a lot of birds inside. I went inside the house at 5 pm, saw many big full size nests, saw many birds flying over my head with no fear.
This one is a real jackpot for the owner, she didn't know much about birds and now she is very happy with the outcome.

CCTV in BH is a must.

Finally after almost three months, I got my telephone and internet line.
Now everyday I can watch birds on line in my bird house which situated 600 km. from where I live.
I can watch from a computer that I can also reset all the parameters from my house.
I can search and replay all the recorded clips that we pre-programmed to the DVR.
I can count exactly how many birds stay in my bird house now.

If you have a mobile phone, you can also download program for free and watch your BH from mobile phone, anytime, any where that you have an edge or wifi signal.

More than that, we can observe how birds react to each type of speaker we installed, how birds react to different sounds we changed. Also we can see that at particular spot, there is only one bird, after few days/weeks, he bring in his partner, then we see some rate X action and later they build their nest.

We can see whether it rain or shine, we can see the light and wind direction in different season.
We can see predators, I saw a big lizard yesterday on the wall.
We can see the micro conditions of each floor from a humidity-temperature controller.
We can see at what time they come back, at what time they wake up.

Enough reasons to convince you all to install one? If not, there are more:

Every day I watch three BHs in action, the other two belong to my friends.
Three BHs are on different locations, I can see how the weather effects the number of birds played around the bird house. Yesterday and a few days earlier, my BH on the East coast was very dried and quiet, while my friend's BH on the West coast rained and had soooooo many birds played inside his BH.
Then, I heard about the Tsunami, we said jokingly, no wonder all birds with their natural instinct were hiding in the West coast.
In the afternoon, we had few minutes rain, then in the evening, birds came out of nowhere!
We can alert each other if we see something wrong, for example, light's out, amplifier doesn't work, temp is too high,etc.

More than enough reason now?

Location and Attitude.

We have a group of friends who talked about swiftlet only, nothing else. We all agreed that:

1. Good location, bad design, bad management, good attitude, still some hope, can be rectify with good advise from friends.

2. Good location, bad design, bad management, bad attitude, very little hope, need to work hard or spend money to buy advise, if lucky enough to find a good consultant.

3. Bad location, good design, good management, good attitude, keep dreaming with all nice words from friends, buy time.

4. Bad location, good design, good management, bad attitude, hopeless, no friendly advise, no support from friends, need to spend, spend and spend until broke or give up and move out.

One bird house in Bangkok , right in the industrial area, owner know nothing about swiftlet but rich, engaged a consultant with good advertising and marketing, result: one nest after 16 months!

Again for newbies only, choose your location wisely and be nice to friends.
Experienced guys may see it differently, sincere and friendly comments with your user name (not a real name, be brave, so I know how to address you or thank you) are welcome.

My sweet spot on first floor started to grow. I am happy, so be happy with me.

What is Echolocation Sound?

Caution: All the articles that I like to share here are meant for newbie only, not for the experts who knew every things already.
And if any of you don't agree, don't criticize me, just ignore it. Don't read any of my article again.
But any sincere and constructive comments with your name are welcome.

We all know that swiftlets used echolocation to see in the dark.
But I think few newbie like me know that the echolocation sound is only the tek, tek, tek sound, not all sounds from swiftlets are used as echolocation sound, not the singing sound, not the crying sound from the baby, not the mating sound, etc.

You all might want to ask the question "How do you know? Can you talk to swiftlet or understand swiftlet?"
I don't know until I saw the attached video.

In the video, an American boy, Ben Underwood, 16 years old, he was blinded since he was 3 years old.
He had cancer in his eyes, doctor advised his mom that unless he had an operation to take his eyeball out, he would die of cancer.
So his mom decided to let him have the operation.

After the operation, Ben told his mom "mom I can't see anymore"
His mom tried to comfort him said "yes, you can see by your hand by touching me, you can see by your nose, you can smell that I am here.
You can see by your ear, you can hear me,....... etc" A very good mom!

One day, one year after his operation, while Ben sat in his mom's car back seat, he asked his mother " mom do you see a big building out there?"
His mom said " yes, I can see the big building out there, do you see the big building out there too?"

We see things around us because of the reflection of light from an object into our eyes.
But Ben and many animals like swiftlet, bat, etc. can see by the reflection of sound from that object into their ears.

Ben can walk anywhere without using a cane or guiding dog as other blind people elsewhere used.
He only used the tek,tek, tek sound similar to the swiftlet's tek, tek, tek sound.
He can ride bicycle, play skateboard, basketball and video game by only using his echolocation tek, tek, tek sound.

He can speak and communicate with others as normal, but those sounds are not functioned as echolocation sound.
Only the tek, tek, tek sound he made is used as an echolocation sound for him to see.

Please watch the rest from the video and understand more about the echolocation sound by yourself.
Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLziFMF4DHA&feature=related

From all the frequency graphs that we saw, can we say that the frequency range of all swiftlet sounds, not just the echolocation sound are between 1-6 kHz.

This is going to be interesting!

A foreigner (illegal immigrant?) came to build bird houses in our country!
Thai people welcome him warmly, tried in every possible way to help him.

I am a newbie, I do whatever I can to help improve my friend and my own bird house.
I wrote whatever I found with good intention, right or wrong, it's my own business. If the reader don't belief in it, just ignore it.

This guy claimed that he is an expert in his blog, sent me e-mails, wanted to know what's the brand of my speakers.
I told him all out of ignorant! He promised that he would do experiments on various speakers and will share all his results.
Where is it?

Then later his friend asked him again about my September, 2010 article; Are we using the right frequency speakers?
He again wrote me and asked more questions, I replied with my sincerity and good intention, even the wording he used to get information from me was considered very rude to the Thai standard. He also insulted other bloggers, be it Malay or Indo in his e-mails. His intention is to get all the information and to write his own book!

When I wrote to him earlier in 2009, he used to be a much better person. He even offered me to see his BH.
I traveled down there with my hubby. Yes, he did let me see the outside and the shell of his BH. What a nice guy!
You all can see how he insulted others in his blog recently. It looks like a totally different guy from his previous writings.

If he doesn't stop insulting me, I can show you all his e-mails to me and let you all be the judge!
I supposed to keep them as personal , but he started to show them first, so I think I can do the same!

I can show them all, every sentences, full version, not just some parts.
Anyone interested to see first, can send me your e-mail too.