Aerodramus fuciphagus

The Java Swiftlet is called Edible-nest Swiftlet in English, and has 8 subspecies.

The Java Swiftlet flies along the coast and islands all day long to catch flying insects, and rarely rests. When flying, it does not make sharp turns like the house swallow, because its tail feathers are not forked. Most of the time they fly. As the fastest flying bird, since Javan swiftlets nest in complete darkness, they have evolved the ability to use click echolocation, often hunting insects in the air, often in large groups with other species of swiftlets and swifts.

Javan swiftlets are insectivores, mainly catching winged arthropods. Including insects of the Hymenoptera (bees, wasps and ants), Diptera (flies) and Coleoptera, while Arachnids (spiders and other arachnids), Coleoptera (beetles) and Hemiptera (true insects) make up the majority of the food source.

Javan swiftlets can breed throughout the year, reaching a peak from October to February of the following year. Usually nesting in cliff crevices, natural rock caves and human houses. Their salivary glands are very developed, and they can use their saliva to build nests on cliffs by the sea. When building a nest, the male and female birds will repeatedly fly to the selected rock wall. Every time they come into contact, they will spit some mucus from their mouths onto the rock wall. This is a kind of colloid mucus secreted by the salivary glands, which quickly dries into silky shapes when exposed to air. After countless spitting and smearing, a semicircular outline is first outlined on the rock wall, and then the convex edges are gradually added upwards, forming a "bird's nest" in the shape of an elbow support layer by layer. It has high strength and adhesion, and looks like a white translucent cup. The nest is about 6 cm long, 1.5 cm deep, and weighs about 14 grams. It will take about 25 minutes a day to build the nest, which takes about 45 days to complete. Usually each pair of birds will lay 2 white oval-shaped dull eggs per nest. The incubation period is an average of 23 days. It takes about 43 days for the chicks to develop and grow before they can leave the nest, and the survival rate of chicks in the nest is about 50%. Causes of death are mainly eggs and chicks falling from the nest.

Prior to the 19th century, Javan swiftlets nested in coastal cave habitats, with no records of inland nesting. In 1880, swiftlet nests were reported in houses near cliffs in the village of Sedayu, East Java. Entrepreneurs eventually began to develop methods to attract swiftlets to nest in houses. The use of radio swiftlet calls to attract nesting birds became the norm. The trade in swiftlet eggs began, and the industry grew. The practice of nesting swiftlets in buildings first appeared in the Malay Peninsula in the 1930s, and was reported first from Java to Singapore, and then spread northwards to Malaysia. Swiftlets have a high degree of nest fidelity, and domesticated swiftlets and their chicks will return to nesting houses provided to them by humans (preferably the same house) to nest again, leaving depleted natural populations and habitats unaffected. Furthermore, the house-nesting swiftlet is suspected to be a mixed population. Domestication may have been carried out by the Germans, and since then, the farmed swiftlet population has spread northwards to Myanmar, where it may compete with local populations and subspecies. More extensive regional genetic studies are needed to confirm these suspicions.

Given the high value of the Javan swiftlet's nests (about $20 per nest), nest harvesting has naturally become very popular. Despite efforts to maintain nest density and manage harvest rates, the wild population of the Javan swiftlet has declined from its once immeasurable numbers, and many breeding sites have disappeared or are already seriously endangered. Italy proposed in 1994 to include the species in CITES Appendix II to regulate trade, so that its eggs and nests cannot be traded on the market. However, opposition from Southeast Asian countries blocked this plan, so the collection of bird's nests and the trade of bird eggs remain unrestricted.

Listed in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN) 2016 ver 3.1 - Least Concern (LC)

Listed in the second level of the "List of National Key Protected Wildlife in China".

Protect wildlife and eliminate game.

Maintaining ecological balance is everyone's responsibility!

The Javan Swiftlet is found in Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, East Timor and Vietnam.
It inhabits a variety of habitats from coastal areas to mountain ranges, up to 2,800 meters above sea level in Sumatra and Borneo. It inhabits outside caves, flies over mangroves, rubber forests, etc., and breeds in cracks on cliffs or under the eaves of buildings.

Javan swiftlets are small insectivorous birds and small climbing birds, with males and females alike. The weight of this species is only 8·7-14·8 g, and the body length is 11.5-12.5 cm. The upper body is dark brown or black brown with a metallic luster; the top of the head, wings and tail feathers are darker; the belt spots are lighter. The buttocks tend to be a lighter gray color, but are variable and appear uniform. The lower body is grey-brown, except for the almost black bottom, which is invisible and shows a forked tail. The feather rachis is slightly dark brown. The wings are black, with tips extending past the end of the tail and twice as long as the tail. The wings fold after landing. The mouth shape is short, broad and flat, but the beak cleft is wider. The big tail is fan-shaped and unforked, and is black both above and below. The feet are black and short, with a front-toe shape, short tarsus, and the tarsometatarsus is exposed or slightly feathered.
In Singapore, it is di