You turned on the sound, and swiftlets really did come to play for a few days.
Then they left.
Now you are asking yourself: is the sound wrong? Should I try another track?
Hold on. Don’t change it yet.
What you are actually seeing
Split this into two questions.
If swiftlets come to play, your sound has already reached them. Calling them in is done. That part works.
If they don’t stay, something felt wrong after they arrived.
So the question to chase is what happens after they arrive. Whether the sound can reach them, they already answered for you. Mix the two up and you keep fixing the wrong side.
The usual mistake: changing the sound again and again
The birds leave, and most people change the sound.
They change it, the birds come to play for a few more days, then leave again. Change again.
In class I once put it like this. It is like taking Panadol every time you have a fever. The fever goes down, but you keep getting sick, because the fever is only on the surface. The thing making you sick, the medicine never touched.
Changing the sound works the same way. A new track pulls the birds in one more time. You can see that, so it feels like it worked. But whatever they hit after arriving is still sitting there. They come for a few days and leave, same as before.
The painful part is that every change costs you another round of waiting, and the problem is still in the same place.
How to check, in order
Order matters. Door first, then the path, then the place they live inside. Sound comes last.
Step one: go into the roaming room and look at the wall outside the second entrance
The first entrance (the hole the birds fly in from outside) leads into a space we call the roaming room. The doorway from the roaming room deeper into the house is the second entrance (the second door that birds will pass through in your bird house).
During the day, after the birds have flown out, walk into the roaming room and look at the wall just outside the second entrance.
Lots of droppings there?
Be clear about which wall. It is the wall around that inside doorway, not the outer wall you see when you stand on the ground and look up at the first entrance. The photo below shows an outer wall. It is only there so you know what the marks look like. The wall you need to check is inside.
This wall is worth a proper look. When birds circle at a doorway and cannot get through smoothly, this may be where they leave their marks.
Step two: wash it, then look again in a few days
Not sure whether the droppings are new or old? Wash that wall clean.
Why wash? What is on the wall now may have been left a long time ago. Old marks describe your house as it was back then. Whatever you changed recently, old marks cannot tell you if it worked. Wash them off and the wall starts keeping score again.
A few days later, again during the day after the birds have gone out, go back and look.
If the droppings are back, the birds may still be circling there, and this stretch deserves a closer look. Hold off on changing the sound for now.
You don’t have to buy anything for this step. Wash one wall, wait a few days. What you get back is fresh evidence from your own house.
I go into that wall in more detail in swiftlets circling the entrance hole but not going in, including the rule about standing at the second entrance and being able to see the first.
Step three: look at the flight path
Once the birds pass the second entrance, the stretch they fly to go deeper is the flight path.
Do they have to make a sharp turn? Do they have to squeeze through a narrow gap? Swiftlets fly in fast. If that last bit forces an awkward move, they choose not to go in.
How to read and change the inside layout of a house you already built, I wrote about in swiftlet house inside layout.
Step four: look at where they settle inside
Door smooth, path smooth, birds getting in. Only now do you check whether they have somewhere to hang and settle inside. The state of the nesting planks and the droppings both tell you this. Compare with swiftlets sleep inside but no nests.
When does it become a sound or equipment question?
You checked all three. The birds get in, they go deeper, and they still won’t stay. Now it is sound’s turn.
The external sound side already proved itself, because the birds came to play. What the sound inside the house needs, I covered in does chick sound attract swiftlets.
So before the door works, buying anything is too early. That is what the MDK Swiftlet House Diagnosis Method is for. Diagnosis first, prescription second. Look at your house, find whether the birds are stuck at the door, on the path, or where they settle, and only then does a prescription make sense.
Get the birds inside first. Whether they stay is the next question.
Your next step
Today, during the day after the birds have flown out, go into the roaming room and check the wall outside the second entrance for droppings. If there are a lot, wash the wall clean and go back to look again in a few days.
Still not sure after that? Film your way in from the entrance hole on your phone, talking as you go, and record the internal sound and then the external sound. Send it to us on WhatsApp. It’s free. If we need more after looking, we will ask. You do not have to get everything ready at once.
If the birds come to play at your house, there is still hope for it. They already found you. Now your job is to let them in.