Salivating for a New Nest Wild Borneo
Category
🐳
AnimalsTranscript
00:00 Southeast of Mount Kinabalu, in Gunung Mulu National Park,
00:05 the flow of water over millions of years
00:08 has carved out one of the largest cave systems on Earth.
00:13 In the depths of the caves, it's permanently dark and damp.
00:19 But even here, there's life.
00:22 Cave swiftlets use clicks as a form of sonar
00:27 to navigate through the darkness and reach the spot they've chosen to raise their young.
00:33 The nest site is high on the cave's slippery walls,
00:48 and with no building materials available,
00:50 the swiftlets adapt to making their own out of spit.
00:57 The bird's saliva is perfect for sticking to the cave wall,
01:01 and it dries rock hard on contact with the air.
01:05 Even so, it may take two months of work
01:08 before a pair has completed their nest and are ready to breed.
01:23 Each one of these ingenious nests is worth its weight in gold.
01:28 They're gourmet delicacies, the main ingredient of bird's nest soup.
01:34 For the birds, though, the nest allows them to raise their young
01:38 out of reach of most predators.
01:42 [Music]