Renovation Completed

Renovation work started on 23 Sept and was completed on 25 Sept.

Major changes are the entrance area. The roving area is bigger and the passage from roving area to the nesting area have changed. All CCTV cameras removed as my friend don't recommend it.

The position of the humidifier was relocated and the mechanical ventilators were turned on 24hr.

Smell in the bird house is much stronger now. He changed the entrance sound but not the internal sound.

Went in to the bird house on 30 Sept. No sign of bird inside the bird house. However, there are many swiftlets flying above the roof circulating the entrance hole. My friend said that the birds will be going in very soon. Will visit the bird house in about 2 weeks time.

My Bird House - 4th week

My bird house is completed. The work took exactly 4 weeks. In fact it could be much faster if not for the few holidays along the way.

All the final details are checked. The alarm is installed with a mobile phone SIM card so that it can call me when the alarm trigger. I used a digi prepaid card because the telco allows the card to be actived for 365 days by paying RM30. I added another RM20 standby for the call charges.

Wifi is added to the CCTV using a router so that I could view the pictures from my notebook. I could see the picture from all the 4 cameras in my car without going into the bird house. Technology is great!

Bird sound is turned on and everything is set. The external sound will play from 7.30am to 8.00pm and the internal sound will play for 24 hours using 2 amplifiers alternating every 6 hours.

The next important thing is to test out the external sound for a few days. If it doesn’t work then the sound must be changed. The external sound must be monitored until a suitable sound is found for the bird house.

After everything is done, the only thing to do is to wait and pray. Hopefully the swiftlets will come to stay in my swiftlet hotel.

My Bird House - 3 1/2 weeks later

Visited the bird house this afternoon. Most of the renovation works have completed. Only outstanding works are the installation of alarm system and CCTV.

Alarm and CCTV is part of the equipment that all bird house owners need to consider. Alarm is to prevent thief from entering the bird house and the CCTV is to monitor swiftlets entering the entrance hole and the nesting area.

It is advisable not to enter to the bird house too often because it may distract the swiftlets and also the smell of human present in the nesting area. Therefore, it is best to enter the bird house only once a month. The only way to monitor the entrance hole and the nesting area from outside is to use the CCTV.

The CCTV that I install will have 4 infra red cameras with a video recorder. The recorded data can be downloaded into a computer notebook. Some bird house owners afraid that the infra red camera will distract the swiftlets but those tested found no such problem.

My bird house is currently enclosed with aroma. We have to let the aroma spread in the bird house for about 3 days before turning on the sound.

We have targeted to commence the bird house on Wednesday (2 days from now). Hopefully, there will be a lot of swiftlets tenants.