MALAYSIANS are kitting out old buildings with stereo systems, humidifiers that emit cooling mists and rustic fittings all to attract guests whose spit is their most valuable attribute.
The white-nest swift uses its saliva to string together a tiny gauze-like nest perched in often inaccessible spots. Gathered at great risk, they form the chief ingredient of the wildly popular Chinese delicacy, bird's nest soup.
Now canny entrepreneurs are luring the birds to old buildings in urban areas, making it easier to harvest the nests and take them to market - and rake in the profits.
In doing so, they have triggered a property boom.
Traditionally men tracked the birds to their isolated caves and climbed bamboo poles to knock the nests off the walls.
But entrepreneurs have found that the swift, a relative of the hummingbird, can be enticed to nest in urban buildings.
"There's lots of money to be made - $2,000 to $3,000 a kilogram," says Mary, who attended Malaysia's first national workshop on birdhouses in search of ways to make her two-storey building in northern Penang state swift-friendly.
More than 400 people flocked to the one-day gathering, more than twice the number organizers had expected, as rumours of swift profits took wing.
Entrepreneurs from the eastern state of Sabah on the island of Borneo, where searching caves for nests is an old tradition and birdhouses are unknown, attended the workshop.
One owner in Sitiawan, the country's most active 'bird' town in central Perak state, reputedly rakes in 400,000 ringgit ($105,263) per collection, once every three months.
John Chen owns a row of three shophouses in Sitiawan, whose upper floors and backrooms are home to swifts.
Chen is one of the few operators who will let outsiders into his houses but he won't talk profits and is vague about the exact number of houses he owns around the country.
The birdhouse is dim with the pungent smell of droppings. Dozens of swifts wheel in and out through a 2-foot square hole high in the wall.
The birds navigate with sound waves bounced off walls and crevices, so the air is filled with the clicks of flyers along with the peeps of the chicks.
Rows of white nests, like half-moon-shaped balconies, jut from thin, wooden planks attached to the ceiling.
The birds are encouraged to nest on the wood because the nests can be removed more cleanly than from the building's original cement walls, says Chen, president of the year-old Malaysia Bird's Nest Merchants Association.
Newborns' tiny pink heads bob out of many nests while older birds, too big for the three-inch nests but still unable to fly, perch on the nest edge all day, waiting to be fed.
Adult birds can spend up to two months slowly building the nests with their saliva. Once the babies leave, the nests are collected, processed in local factories to remove feathers and other debris, and packaged for sale.
About half of Malaysia's nests are consumed at home. The rest are exported, mainly to Hong Kong and Singapore, Chen says.
The soup may be low on nutrients but is popularly credited with clearing up women's complexions and flushing out the male digestive system.
A 150-gram box of superior nests - about 30 pieces - on display at the workshop was priced at $1,316.
Restaurants sell a bowl of the elixir for about $21.
Those prices have encouraged hundreds to launch bird businesses in the past two years, sending real estate in small towns soaring.
The prices of Taiping's vacant shophouses - two-storey buildings designed for retail trade on the ground floor with living quarters above - doubled in 2000 to $65,789, according to a local real estate agent last year.
The cost of a shophouse in the town of Sitiawan jumped to $92,105 in 2000 from $65,789 in 1999, birdhouse owner Ling Jeng Chai says.
Since he set up his first house - "as a hobby" - over two years ago, the number of birdhouses has soared to 300 from 20.
The wildlife department says there were just over 150 birdhouses in the whole of Malaysia three years ago. Today the number approaches 2,000.
Builders may spend over $10,000 to renovate a property.
Many install stereo systems that play recorded birdsong to attract swifts. Others buy humidifiers that pour out a cooling mist to keep the temperature in the ideal range of 25 to 28 degrees Celsius (77 degrees to 82 degrees Fahrenheit).
Chen's birdhouses resemble neighbouring buildings and he scorns gimmicks like recorded birdsong. "It's quite easy. Nature does the work for you," he says.
Chen believes some owners make themselves targets for criticism when they renovate buildings and turn them into fortresses, removing windows and sticking rows of pipes into walls for ventilation.
Steel doors are installed and equipped with multiple locks.
Neighbours in many towns have complained about the smell, droppings and the 24-hour recorded chirping many owners play to attract feathered tenants.
"These birds' nests problems are one of the major items on our agenda every month," says Mohammad Pilus Mohammad Noor, councillor for Seberang Prai, a Penang municipality.
"Most of the birdhouses are sandwiched by residential units. That's where the problem comes up."
Found At: http://app1.chinadaily.com.cn/star/2001/0510/fe20-1.html
