After seeing his neighbours profit from the thumb-sized swiftlets which for mysterious reasons have taken up residence in Pattani, Dumrong Chaiwanon decided to try his luck.

Three months ago he opened up a large room above his car spare parts business in the hope of attracting the birds whose nests are made into a soup highly prized in Asia as a health tonic.

"He used my apartment," his daughter Wanaporn Chaiwanon said with a laugh, "but really I don't mind because in the long run I hope it will make him lots of money."

The delicate nests, found across Asia but normally only in remote caves, are made from the birds' saliva and can fetch up to 2,500 dollars per kilogram depending on the colour and cleanliness of the gossamer strands.

"I am not in it for the money, it's just a hobby," said Dumrong, president of the the chamber of commerce in Pattani, one of Thailand's southernmost provinces near the Malaysian border.

"I've covered the windows and made the apartment wet but left enough space for the birds to get in, and I play bird song CDs which is the most important factor in attracting them."

The birds were first reported in Pattani about 80 years ago in a house near the city's historic Chao Mae Lim Ko Niew shrine, but for reasons no one can explain, they took up occupancy in large numbers about six years ago.

Now, throughout the city and the surrounding countryside people are building and waiting.

The birds are a much-needed boon to the local economy which has been battered by separatist violence that broke out in the Muslim-majority south at the beginning of the year, sending shockwaves through Thailand.

"Since January, overall business in Pattani is down 30 to 50 percent with the service sector down as much as 70 percent," Dumrong said. "But there are now about 100 houses in Pattani which make money from keeping the birds."

Hotel manager Anusart Suwanmongkol said the regional economic crisis which hit Thailand hard in 1997 turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it forced construction to be halted.

"The basement was going to be a staff canteen or seminar room or lounge but then building got delayed when the economic bubble burst and the birds moved in," said Anusart, peering into the cavern which hosts some 10,000 tiny tenants.

"Now if people ask me about my occupancy rates I say 'they are 100 percent' because the birds are always down there."

The local Ford dealership has its own bird showroom on the second floor and residents joke about the young man who made his grandmother vacate the second floor of his home in the hope the birds would move in.

Developers have posted "ready to build bird condo" signs on sites along swiftlet flight paths and self-proclaimed experts give money-back guarantees on their services to attract the elusive providers of "white gold."

"Many people spend up to 10 million baht (256,000 dollars) or more on bird condos and some are extremely high tech," says Anusart.

Even those lucky enough to be chosen as hosts by the birds are still in for a long wait.

It takes three years of habitation before the nests can be farmed, and there is no guarantee they will provide the fine, light-coloured nests most highly prized by birds nest soup connoisseurs -- mostly ethnic Chinese.

Once ready for cultivation, collectors chisel from the wall only the abandoned nests which are then soaked for several hours before being picked clean with a magnifying glass and tweezers and finally steamed.

Despite all the hard labour and the reported health benefits, nobody claims birds' nest soup is tasty.

"It tastes a bit like jelly, but because the hot or cold soup is considered medicinal, the demand from mainland China and from Chinese living abroad is almost limitless," said Anusart, who sells the labours of his own flock for about 20 dollars a bowl in his hotel's restaurant.

Those who have nests to sell mostly offload their harvest to dealers who ship them to China by way of Hong Kong, earning the region an estimated half a million dollars annually. Others must watch the sky and wait.

"I know my bird song CDs are good ones, so I feel it is only a matter of time," said Dumrong as the sun set and thousands of birds flew past to roost at the home of a more fortunate neighbour.

TERRA.WIRE