It will be 1 year now on 8th July 2010

My swiftlet sanctuary will be 1 year old on 8th July 2010. Initially progress had been very slow. Maybe , due to the shape of the entrance and covered roving area which had scared away the swiftlets. The situation had improved now and swiftlets can be seen above the sanctuary chasing one another in the late evening and nests population had increased to 9 Nos. Also a lot of swiftlets were seen returning home at around 7.00 pm to 7.30 pm. The sanctuary also had some bad luck. It had been broken in thrice. The first time nothing was taken. the 2nd time 2 water pumps were taken away and the 3rd time which happened about 3 weeks ago, the burglers took away one amplifier and a few nests. Had also being spraying the sanctuary with EM and it seems to have attract more swiftlets staying in the sanctuary. While in the sanctuary last Friday, 2 swiftlets came flying in to play at around 1.30 pm. I have also have been testing my own homemade aroma which I called Ecstasy on certain parts of the sanctuary and will be monitoring the response. I sprayed this aroma directly on the nesting planks.

Ecstasy

Nest marking

Nest at corner and above tweeter

Nest marking at corner

Nest above tweeter

Nest marking

Nest forming above tweeter at corner

Nest already well formed

Nest at corner

Padlock dismantled by bugler

Padlock cover slightly ripped by bugler.

Nests starting to appear

After 8 months and 10 days nests had started to appear, 1 almost fully developed. anotehr almost a half nest and 2 more just markings forming the nest base. . Birdshits!!. Well there a alot already. Hopefully more will be coming though a bit slow to our liking. There's a Malay saying, "Sedikit-sedikit lama-lama jadi bukit". Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Amost a full nest

Almost a half nest

Nest base

Another nest base

7 months on, Slowly but Surely

Today, 07.02.2010, is exactly 7 months since I started switching on the sound to my swiftlet sanctuary. When I entered the sanctuary this morning, to my surprise there is a nest base at the corner of the nesting planks on the 3rd. Floor. In my earlier post, I had reported that I discovered a nest base but that was a false alarm as the base did not show any progress but this time it is for real. The past 3 months had been the month of slow growth everywhere where very few swiftlets were seen in the sky and even in the birdhouses. I just visited a birdhouse in Hulu Besut and the owners had been complaining about the slow progress for the past months but to their surprise when they visited the birdhouse yesterday after 2 weeks being away, there were 5 new nest bases. This shows that the breeding season is on and more nests and babies are on the way. In my sanctuary, I discovered a lot of bird shits on the 2nd and 3rd Floor, mostly below the tweeters, but so far only 1 nest base above the bird shit. I am positive that more nests will come with the breeding season already started. Most of the bird shits are on the 3rd Floor which is the brightest of the the 3 Floors. This would just dispel the myth that swiftlets like to stay in dark places.

1st. nest base at corner and besides tweeter

Bird shits above tweeter

Bird shits above tweeter

Bird shits above tweeter

Bird shits above tweeter

Bird shits above tweeter