Birds-nest

Swifts and heavily wooded darkening hills nearing dusk. In their ubiquity and constancy the birds present as large a factor to the evening as the rearing side at the bottom of the street. Though they do not flock in any discernible form, and singly their small dark shapes present no feature to the eye, in company the random flitting and darting constitutes a large presence.. Tonight the clouds are thin and receding, newly made or remnants. An hour ago the skies had opened and drenched the town in one of the regular monsoon downpours. The clearing had been well-timed for the dinner hour, bringing people out onto the streets. Again greetings and much observation on every side, from children through to the elderly. Earlier in the afternoon a face behind the glass of a car door strongly suggested a European, a white man. In the rear a woman had giggled, perhaps at the conjunction, if indeed there was one. After more than twenty-four hours one can hardly believe one's eyes in such matters here. Back in the days of tin and rubber the case may have not in fact been very different, the English keeping to their compounds, servants shopping at the markets and where there were outings perhaps quick passes in motor cars.
         The hill adds further mass to their form as night comes on. Again earlier in the afternoon there had appeared a kind of school-room Geometric rhomboid of bright light cast across one of the shadowed slopes, revealing the green and the gaps between the trees. In the flat-land of Melbourne one can never see displays of segmented light of this kind delivered as if by sleight of hand by a conjurer. Little more than an hour out from Butterworth, Taiping is ringed by low hills. On the bus out from KL the deeply gouged hills of the region marked the progress. Within the town itself none of the ravage is apparent.

         Coming out for dinner a couple of bird-houses called for close attention. Near this second hotel—the Furama was booked out tonight—one four storey building had been part-converted into a bird-house. There were shops on street level and offices behind darkened glass on the first floor. Above on the two upper levels tilt-up concrete had been raised over the windows and perforated by a single small circular hole. Evidently the birds need dark for nesting. In that quarter near the Cherry Inn numerous houses have been converted for the swiftlets. The sound of their calling there never ceases, though it seems not the entire racket is as it appears. Away from the bird-houses, as on the corner before the now smoky dark hill, there is almost not a single twitter audible, though the gaps between the buildings are filled by the small, dark and darting swifts. In some sense the swifts stand in for suburban Australian electrical street wire, not much in evidence in this town. At the bird-houses the chatter is in fact electrical, amplified recording of the swift's call in order to entice the birds. Tubs of water are provided indoors. As food is plentiful in the surrounds there is no need for that. To counter the heat the piping of fine mist is introduced and the floors need to be regularly cleaned to minimize the ammonia content. The reason for the farming is not the eggs of the birds, but rather the nests that are formed over thirty-five days from the swifts’nutrient-rich saliva. In earlier time the nests were harvested from caves high up in the hills of the region where the birds formed their structures against the sides of the dark walls. Fully built, the nest takes the shape of a small cup; steaming produces fine brittle strands similar to the thin white bee hoon noodle. As a delicacy the birds’ nest soup fetches high prices in fancy restaurants in China and the wider region. A birds’ nest drink was in former time always colourless. Now some kind of additive produces a cloudy barley hue. One can easily make the mistake of thinking the wooded hills and the famous lake here in Taiping has drawn a great deal of bird-life. No need as in days gone by to climb cliffs and mountains for the precious product. Birders are gentlemen now with shiny cars in Taiping and other Malaysian cities. Hundred and ten and twenty years old buildings, streaked with grime but remaining more than a little handsome and fine, converted to aviaries in the middle of an old town that was once the capital of the state of Perak, the seat of a Sultan.