Birds' Nest House Visit

Visited the swiflets' house to harvest a few nests when i was back in my hometown at Kuala Terengganu. okay that was like.. 3 weeks ago! In case you're wondering, swiflet is a species of bird which produces the edible bird's nest - a Chinese delicacy. Pretty good stuff if you don't think of the fact that the nests are made from the bird's saliva!! kekeke



This is the actual nest from the birdhouse - complete with feathers!! Swiflet's nest from the birdhouse are said to be much cleaner than the ones from cave



A fallen swiflet - this bird was slumped on the floor when we were going up to the birdhouse. Took it in my hand for pics and put the poor bird back where it's safe :)



Like a cave, the bird's natural habitat, it's pitch dark inside with a lot of bird's dropping! Euw, so smelly! We had to wear face mask and use this makeshift lamp whenever we go in to harvest the nests.



Gotta bring torchlights too! The swiftlets normally fly out and get back to their nests late in the evening, but there were quite a few hanging around when we went up during the midday



yeah, those white thingies are the nests!



Check if there's any egg or babies inside before harvesting the nest.



okay, time to harvest if it's clear



A baby swiftlet in the nest... probably newly hatched... geli lah.. haha



One of us accidentally harvested a nest with eggs inside! yikes!! We then put the eggs back in some other nest... hehehe



One of the many speakers that projects bird-like sound to attract swiflets into the birdhouse.



The nests we collected that day



Let's clean them and make some bird nest's soup!! Soak in water and pick out the feathers with this surgery-like tool... a freaking tedious process for sure!!



Especially those tiny, fine feathers!!! gosh, I have no patience nor the eyes (yeah, need good eyes for those tiny specs of feathers) for these!! My sis and the maid did it... nice and clean. Ready to be dumped into soup and eat! yumyum! :)



Still have a bunch of hometown pics. Will be posting more soon. They're all over my harddrive! :D