About Bird’s Saliva Nest

About Bird’s Saliva Nest

The nests are about the size and hardness of teacups; are essentially made from hardened saliva mixed with feathers, grass and twigs; and look like congealed strands of vermicelli. The noodle-like fibers are used to bond nesting materials together and attach the nest to a vertical walls of caves or cliffs or hollow tree nesting sites.

There are two kinds of nests:

White nests made up mostly of saliva and black nests with plant materials and feathers mixed in. White nests are the most valuable. They are generally made by Bird’s Saliva Nest that nest deep inside the caves and are ideally collected before a female lays her eggs. Generally the whiter and purer a nest is the more tasty and valuable it is. Black nests are also collected. These nests can not be eaten until they have been properly cleaned.
The edible-nest swiftlet often build their nest in the most inaccessible of places: on the roofs and upper walls of high caves and even overhangs. Other species build nests the in buildings and bridges and chimneys but not the edible-nest swiftlet. Sometimes the eggs and young of edible-nest Bird’s Saliva Nest are placed in the nest of an other species, the uniform swiftlet, which lives in buildings. There are some claims that a third of nest form Indonesia are taken from Bird’s Saliva Nest that have made their nests in buildings.

Making Bird’s Saliva Nest

To make a nest a swiftlet moves its head back and forth like a weaving bobbin. David Attenborough wrote: “The bird starts by flying persistently in front of its chosen site and repeatedly dabbing the rock with its tongue, laying down a curved line of saliva which marks the lower edge of the nest-to-be. The saliva dries and hardens quickly and with repeated flights, the bird slowly builds up the low line into a low wall. As soon as this is big enough to cling to, the speed of construction accelerates and within a few days the wall has become a semicircular cup of creamy white interlacing string that is just big enough to hold the customary clutch of two eggs."
The swiftlet are so small they don't have the strength to pick up nesting materials such as twigs and leaves from the ground like other birds. Instead they pick up pieces of feather, fragments of dried grass and other small things they find floating in the air and affix the to a surface their "sticky spittle." Nests near the entrance to the caves have large amounts of feathers. Those that are deeper inside are made primarily of spittle, and are thus more desirable. .
The swifts can take up two months to build a nest. Ideally the nest is collected after fledglings have take wing rather than before eggs of hatched. That way there are more birds o create nests. After the nests are harvested they are soaked in water ti soften them up and a magnifying glass is used to pick out loose impurities like twigs and feathers. After being steamed or boiled the nest separate into long chewy strands. About half the material in protein. What health benefits might be found in the nests are believed to be lost during the cleaning process.