What is Swiftlet Nest, secret unveiled

What is Swiftlet Nest, secret unveiled

Hi there, if you have never come into contact with Swiftlet Nest before, youmust be wondering what’s all this fuss about Swiftlet Nest. What is Swiftlet Nest, really ? What is so great about Swiftlet Nest and why is it so expensive.  Well, Swiftlet Nest or to be more exact Swiftlet Nests are actually nests woven by the secreted saliva of certain swiftlet species during their breeding seasons. It is widely consumed as a health food due to its high beneficial effects to human health and has been considered to be one of the most precious food items by the Chinese for thousands of years.  It is frequently being referred to as the “Caviar of the East” because  it fetches a premium price and regarded as an esteemed food product in the East.

History of Swiftlet Nest

There were many versions on the history of Swiftlet Nest, but the mostadmiral cheng ho
interesting one attributed the discovery of Swiftlet Nest to Admiral Cheng Ho of the Ming Dynasty. According to the legend, Admiral Cheng Ho encountered a big thunderstorm during one of his sailing expedition across the south east asian sea during the 15th century. He and his subordinates were stranded on a malay island and they were seriously short of food supplies. In their search for food, they found these Swiftlet Nests stuck to the side of the cliffs. As they were desperately in need of food and nourishment, they boiled these Swiftlet Nests in water and consumed them to fill their stomachs.
After consuming these Swiftlet Nest soup for a while, Admiral Cheng Ho realized that the soldiers were getting more energized, and some sick soldiers were even recovering faster from their illness. Some even gained healthier complexions. Realizing the health benefits of these newly found Swiftlet Nests, Admiral Cheng Ho brought some back to present to the Emperor. Since then, Swiftlet Nest became a food delicacy in the palace, serving primarily the royal families. The emperor’s wife and concubines will especially consume Swiftlet Nest regularly to maintain their beauty and youthful looks.

White-Nest Swiftlet and Black-Nest Swiftlet

Not all nests produced by swiftlets are edible. The nests of the white-nest swiftlet (Aerodramus fuciphagus) and the black-nest swiftlet (Aerodramus maximus) are constructed from the saliva of the swiftlets and these specifies actually produce the Swiftlet Nests. There are other swiftlet species that construct their nests largely out of vegetation such as grass, feather and mud and these nests necessarily do not have any commercial values. In Malaysia, the nests of the white-nest swiftlet and the black-nest swiftlet are heavily harvested.

White-Nest Swiftlet

The white-nest swiftlet is a small bird of the swift family which can be white-nest swiftletfound in South East Asia. Its nest is made of solidified saliva and is harvested and used to make Swiftlet Nest soup. It is roughly about 11 to 12 cm long and weighs 15 to 18 grams. The plumage is blackish-brown above, paler on the under parts. The rump is slightly paler than the rest of the upper parts. The tail is slightly forked and the wings are long and narrow. It’s bill and feet are black.

Black-Nest Swiftlet

The black-nest swiftlet also makes it’s nest from solidified saliva. black-nest swiftletIt shares a lot of similarities with the white-nest swiftlet except for a few differences. A white-nest swiftlet has shorter wings, a deeper tail-notch, and a darker underpart compared to its close homolog, black-nest swiftlet.

Swiftlet life cycles

The life cycles and of swiftlets and their behaviours in various habitat conditions have been observed and studied in detail over a long period of time. Swiftlets are known to be monogamous and breed with high nest site fidelity (Viruhpintu et al., 2002). Swiftlets start to breed roughly at the age of one-year-old (Nguyen, Quang & Voisin, 2002). However, the breeding cycle and the associated breeding activities such as the nest-building, egg laying, egg incubation and young rearing may vary across different species and geological regions. These variations could be influenced by climatic factors such as the amount of rainfall, air humidity, and food availability (Langham, 1980).
Generally speaking, the breeding cycle of a swiftlet species is approximately 92–120 days with a clutch size of two eggs (Langham, 1980; Lim et al., 2002; Viruhpintu et al., 2002). Black-nest swiftlet produces a single egg clutch with an approximate egg size of 16-25 mm; while white-nest swiftlet normally lays two eggs per clutch with approximate egg size of 10-15mm. The incubation and fledging periods for both white-nest swiftlet and black-nest swiftlet were 23±3 days and 43±6 days, respectively (Langham, 1980; Lim et al., 2002; Medway, 1962). Swiftlets breed throughout the year but mostly from October to February (Langham, 1980). Swiftlets take approximately 30-45 days to complete a single nest during the breeding season and about 60-80 days in non-breeding season (Aowphol, Voris, Feldheim, Harnyuttanakorn & Thirakhupt, 2008). According to Marcone (2005), nests are built almost exclusively by male swiftlets in approximately 35 days; however Lim et al (2002) reported that both male and female participate in the nest building.

Cave Swiftlet Nest versus House Swiftlet Nest

Swiftlet Nest are aerial insectivores, which take prey like flies on
the wing. They roost and breed in caves. During the day they leave the caves to forage for food, and return to roost at night. They are monogamous and both partners take part in caring for the nestlings. Males perform aerial displays to attract females and mating occurs at the nest. The breeding season overlaps the wet season, which corresponds to an increased insect population. Basically Swiftlet Nest may be categorised as cave Swiftlet Nest or house Swiftlet Nest based on the habitat of the swiftlet.
Cave Swiftlet Nest
The cave Swiftlet Nest comes from the natural habitat of the Swiftlet Nest. Swiftlet breed naturally on limestone caves anNiah Caved clings to the surface of the walls and ceilings of these caves. From research studies, it was found that swiftlets construct their nests at different areas of the cave wall to avoid interspecific competition for nestling space, and both the black-nest swiftlets and white nest swiftlets select their nestling areas by unique characteristics and not randomly. It was also found that the white nest is commonly distributed at low altitude natural cave up to 1280 m highland while black-nest swiflet normally roosts from sea level to a height of 1830 m (Lim et al., 2002). Researchers speculated that the black-nest swiftlet is able to fly and live at higher altitude due to its larger body and larger wings.
Most edible swiftlets live in the tropical Indo-Pacific region and do not migrate. These birds usually remain in one cave or other roosting/nesting site. Examples of cave sites include the Niah Caves and Gunung Mulu National Park, which are both located in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo.
The caves are also well known for the birds’ nest industry. They are also a popular tourist destination in Sarawak. Every section of the ceiling in the caves where there are birds roosting is privately owned and only the owner has the right to collect the nests. Collection is done half-yearly (usually in January and in June). The collector will climb up hundreds of feet on a single pole to the cave ceiling and scrapes off the nest in flickering candlelight.
House Swiftlet Nest
House Swiftlet Nests are basically Swiftlet Nest that are collected from Nesting Housethe man-made habitat of Swiftlet Nest. With the escalation in demand for Swiftlet Nest, the natural sources of Swiftlet Nest from limestone caves have been supplanted since the late 1990s by purpose-built nesting houses.
In swiftlet farming industry, man created an artificial house that resembles the natural habitat for swiftlets to roost. Studies on swiftlet nesting behaviours in natural habitat provide important information to improve the breeding environment of swiftlet houses. Man-made swiftlet houses are cave-like environments that allow the swiftlets to construct nests. Swiftlet houses can be found all over Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand due to the active swiftlet farming industry of both white-nest and black-nest swiftlets. Generally, swiftlet houses are normally built close to the coast or far inland to create suitable conditions for swiftlet farming. Several elements such as light intensity, temperature, air velocity and humidity were controlled and optimised in order to replicate a suitable living environment for the swiftlets. The main entrance hole of a swiftlet house is usually designed near the top of the structure in order to avoid direct sunlight and to limit the light intensity of the structure (Sankaran, 2001). Normally, the building is constructed as a closed structure with only a limited number of ventilation holes. Air movement will cause evaporation to reduce the humidity level and air temperature inside the building. The temperature is controlled by the air ventilation while humidity is controlled by the installed humidifiers and the pools of water provided inside the structure. Temperature and humidity are important to ensure nestling success and produce good quality nests.
This has become an extraordinary industry, mainly based on a series of towns in the Indonesian province of North Sumatra, which have been completely transformed by the activity.
From there the nests are mostly exported to the markets in Hong Kong, which has become the centre of the world trade, though most of the final consumers are from mainland China.