Bird Saliva Soup

From what I’ve seen in the past few months it is virtually impossible to go for a day without seeing a swift (or two … or two hundred). They seem to be everywhere (at least everywhere I have been). We don’t have many Swifts in Canada but they are abundant in Asia.

What is a Swift? Swifts (and their relatives the Swiftlets) are small birds that resemble Swallows (they may look like Swallows but Swifts are in fact more closely related to Hummingbirds). In south-east Asia they can be seen soaring and swooping on stiff boomerang shaped wings feasting on the abundance of insects in the tropical skies.

Most Swifts nest in caves and many create a unique nest using their own ‘saliva’ (yes you read correctly). The essential ingredient for “Bird’s Nest Soup” is the saliva of the bird. For centuries these nests have been a delicacy in China and other Asian countries and have also been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (for anything indigestion to increased longevity) and historically was believed to have aphrodisiac powers (although there is no scientific evidence for this).

A bowl of Birds Nest Soup (as it is more commonly known) can fetch anywhere from $30 to $100 per bowl in Hong Kong (depending on its saliva purity – which is dependent on the species of swift that the nest came from - almost pure in the nests of some species).

Swift Nesting House in Northern Malaysia

Indonesia & Malaysia have long been major suppliers of nests for the Bird Nest Soup market as natural limestone caves in Borneo have been used by swifts for nesting for centuries. But because the swift nests are found high up on cave walls it is a lot of work (and also very dangerous) to collect the naturally created nests. A creative entrepreneur realized that more money could be made if he could find more nests and eventually came up with the idea to make artificial nesting sites.

Swift Nesting House

So rather than taking nests from the wild these entrepreneurs have created buildings that have holes for the swifts to nest in. As we were driving along a road in northern Malaysia I noticed a large cement building beside the road which turned out to be one of the swift “hotels”. These large concrete structures are built solely for swifts to nest in – but upon construction the nest is removed to be sold off to fill someone’s bowl.

When we stopped to take a closer look at one of the swift hotels they were even playing the songs of swifts through a PA system (I assume to encourage nest building). The sound though is not appreciated by some locals who don’t like the sound blasting out of the speakers all day long (I am not sure if they turn off the sound at night).

Isn’t that a bit of an overkill may ask? Well the Bird Nest Soup industry makes many millions of dollars each year in Asia. In Indonesia alone the economic contribution of the Birds Nest Soup industry is equal to about one quarter of the country’s entire fishing industry.

Not bad for a bit of bird spit.

UPDATE: I just visited one of the 'swift nesting houses' on the outskirts of Manado in North Sulawesi, Indonesia today (June 9) and got some more information. The 'sounds' that are played on the loudspeakers are played 24 hours a day ... and are not 'songs' per se but more like clicks. I made a recording and will add that to the Blog soon.

And ... the value for one kilogram of swift nest ranges from 7,000,000 Indonesian Rupiah IDR (about $780 Canadian) to 20,000,000 IDR ($2200 Canadian). It takes about 120 nests to make one kilogram.

And the cost to build one of the swift nesting houses (although they do vary in size) is about 4,000,000,000 IDR (about $440,000 Can). So... I think you can see that the bird nest soup industry is BIG BUSINESS!

And oh... once the nest is created... they replace the nest that is removed with an artificial nest so that the birds can continue incubating the eggs to hatching. I am not sure though about the success rate of real nests vs. fake nests. I will need to do more research.