Sanctuary for swiftlet – 10 test to pass!

Bird house (BH), is the sanctuary for the swiftlets. Nobody can deny that.

We, BH owners are passionate to offer the swiftlets a place called home, a comfortable Shangri-La that makes them feel safe, warm, cozy, secured and let them grow up with love.

We provide them a cave-like environment to stay, we accommodate them 5 star’s protection & facilities and we let them multiply in numbers.

In order to shower them with our love, we try our very best to be in their shoes, see what they see, feel what they feel and think what they think.

We seek to understand rather than to be understood.

We seek for forgiveness if some of us did not give much thought to their neighbours and the public. As this industry is still in its infancy stage, there will be recalcitrant bat hats that flout the guidelines and give the business a bad name. These people are not really the true friends of the swiftlets. We, the swiftlets’ lifelong buddies & business partners, are people with good heart, we mean business in the same time we heed the concern of the society and we care for the wellness of the industry for the betterment of our country’s economy.

First thing first, in order to succeed, we have to earn the trust from our beloved friends, the swiftlets.

We have to pass the test!

The following article was posted in Lowyat V1 forum. It is from a Thai guy’s blog and was translated by Chitchai.

Thought it is interesting and useful for newbie and like to edit & re-post it here.

Hope you enjoy reading it.

10 Tests To Pass!

Swiftlets ask me to write:

We are the swiftlets and you are the human, the human who always beat little birds like us. Anyway, we are happy that many of you build houses for us. As long as we have places to breed our kind, we don’t mind if you will take our nests away. Now that you want to build a house for us, we like to give you some guidelines to build a successful birdhouse so that we can benefit from that too.

First of all, the smell.

The first day we see this world, after 22-28 days of hatching period, we can only smell. And the first thing we smell is bird droppings’ smell. Since the day we were born to the day we grow up, this very strong smell is so familiar to us. So, if you want to build a house for us, please make the house smell exactly like the place we came from. Then we might visit and stay with you, provided that our existing house is full or something happens to our house (because we live in flock and we love to stay close to our parents and our flock). So if you can make the smell right (to smell like swiftlet droppings), you have passed the first test.

Secondly, the in and out holes.

Sizes of the entrances and exits can be small or large, do not matter much, as long as we can comfortably go in and come back. Some of you try to reduce the light to the nesting room by putting a partition in the roving area, and some of your partition is too close to the entrance and thus make us difficult to maneuver. Some of you use the dog kernel type and hack a hole for us to go down. This type will be acceptable only if the dive down hole is big enough. We like you to try to become swiftlets like us for a day, and try to maneuver down the hole yourselves. Some of us got knocked in the heads or the wings with this dive-down entrance edge, as we have no disc brakes to slam on. Therefore, in and out hole’s size must be enough for us to turn in with ease. If you can do this you have passed the 2nd test.

3. The bird call sounds.

We live in flocks as we do feel safe with many of us around. Therefore, the bird call sound you use must be clear sound that representing many of us in the house (do not use the “solo” sound). We know you trick us, but we don’t mind as long as the sounds make us feel comfortable and safe. That’s why we make nests close to the tweeters in the house. So installing many internal tweeters is preferable to us. We are telling you the truth about sounds here, while many of you still trick your own kind, saying my external sound is better than your external sounds, whatever. The truth is, the external sound is merely a tool to advertise to us that “Hey, there is a BH here”. We only wish those sounds coming out to our ears replicate exact sound made by our kind. No jazz, no rock, no echo, just pure, natural sounds.

4. The nesting planks.

We like to cling on medium hardness and odourless planks. Many grooves type is better. We prefer 6-8inches width with 1 inch thick. Do not worry about meranti if you couldn’t find it, since we were in the cave before and there were absolutely no meranti in the cave. Make them seal tight to the ceiling as we feel safer and more secured. Lots of space to cling for my friends would be perfect. If you can do this, you pass the test no.4.

5. The Temperature.

Do you know that we also feel hot and exhausted during hot days in the sky? Was it not for our feathers we would have become toasted swiftlet in the air. Therefore please try to make your house cool, so we can come back in to rest comfortably. Can you understand? We dislike getting toasted in air and come back to oven-like home! 27-29 degree Celsius is preferable. With this temperature, our feather won’t fall down when we make nest and the nests shape, size and softness will be good too. This is the 5th test.

6. Humidity

Humidity of 80-85% is ideal. With this humidity our kids in the nest feel comfortable as their skins won’t be too dry, and they won’t feel too thirsty very often. That allows us to stay longer off the house looking for food; no need to come back every 3-4 hours. The humidity still keeps our nest from becoming too dry and crispy. Adequate humidity also helps reducing temperature. That’s the 6th test.

7. Darkness.

Darkness makes us feel safe. We recommend you to make it as dark as possible. Light in the in-out hole is all right, as long as it’s dark where we stay. This is very important and we hope you pass this 7th test.

8. Predators

We are small birds and we don’t like to be hunted. We love our babies and we will go crazy if something were to happen to our babies. If your house has predators and those hurt our kids, we will turn our back to your house forever. Therefore if you help us by getting rid of all predators in the house, you will pass the 8th test.

9. The Location

We love houses that are close to the vegetation area. Forests, plants, woods or canal or river area are all good. The water area for us to wash, drink and play should not be too far away from your house. If you build a birdhouse in this area, chances are many of us will visit you.

10. The size of the house

The size does not matter much because the more important is the design and the above-mentioned tests. You must meet the above 9 criteria in order for us to stay in your house. Small house is not a disadvantage as long as inside you make it roomy enough for us to fly with ease. Circle left of right freely, dive-down or fly up with ease. If you can do this you pass the 10th test.

We have told you what we have in mind. If you pass all 10 tests you will be in good shape. The day you start calling us you must feel totally anxious, extremely happy when many of us come close to your inlet hole, and extremely miserable when not one of us play close to your hole. Don’t worry. Just check if you have passed all the tests and you must give us sometimes to visit you and check the conditions in your house. If the conditions are good and we decide to stay, we will see our nest base in no time, and you will smile at last.

Now... good luck to you, the human.

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Now you can see that…

It’s below the dignity to do harm to the swiftlets.

Nevertheless, we know that there are unscrupulous hypocrites out there in Sarawak take the laws at own hands to shift them out and ban them from staying in the town BHs at all costs in the name of protecting them. What a joke!

We know what they are doing under the pretext of their crooked agenda.

The world is watching.

Now, we cry for you, swiftlet.

We cry for your ruined home and dream….