1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 219: Discovering a Cave Full of Bird's Nests

We drove the boat around the small island on the left, but couldn't find a suitable entrance to the island.

Except for the cliffs on the side close to the strait, the rest of the edges of the island are mostly reefs and rocks.

After driving for a while, they finally found a relatively flat sandy beach. Liang Ziqiang brought the boat closer and stopped, planning to land on the island from here.

After dropping anchor and tying the rope to a nearby tree, Liang Ziqiang decisively got off the boat and stepped onto the sand.

Even if he found the beach as an entrance, he found that the island was still not easy to enter. Beyond the beach, there were weeds and shrubs. Further away, there were sparse peach blossoms and winter jasmine flowers, pink and bright yellow.

When he got off the boat, he took a lot of tools from the boat, including a shovel, a thick rope, and a wooden stick.

At this moment, they used shovels and thick wooden sticks to clear a path, pushing aside the weeds along the way and heading towards the island.

When Liang Ziqiang first said he wanted to go to the island, Deng Zhaocai was confused and didn't know what he was talking about. Liang Ziqiang told him about the golden swift, but he didn't understand until Liang Ziqiang mentioned the word "bird's nest", and Deng Zhaocai immediately became very excited.

At this time, Deng Zhaocai followed very closely, sometimes even running in front of him and using a stick to clear the way.

"Don't run around blindly. Look for a small hill with a big cave on it. That's what we're looking for!"

Liang Ziqiang saw Deng Zhaocai running around aimlessly like a big bear, and shouted a warning from behind.

There are only a handful of places in the country where golden swifts can be found, but there are some patterns. Almost all of the places where golden swifts are found have two things in common.

One, the island; two, the cave.

Golden swifts like to find isolated islands on the sea to live on, but there must be large caves on the island.

Golden swifts have also been seen in a few deep mountains and forests in China, but this is actually because the local forest climate is special, very similar to an isolated island.

Normally, the golden swift is a bird that has a special liking for islands. That is why Liang Ziqiang has seen information about this bird many times on the ocean channel.

In many of my impressions, I always remember that golden swifts love to build nests on cliffs, and I take it for granted that golden swifts build their nests on cliffs.

This is a misunderstanding.

In fact, the cliffs chosen by swifts to build nests often refer to the walls of caves.

"Oh, then you should go ahead!"

Deng Zhaocai found himself still a little confused, so he gave up paving the way for him.

The two trudged on for a long time. Just like the grouper's nameless island, no one had dared to come here for decades, so there was no way to walk on the island. They had to grope their way step by step, which was really difficult.

Fortunately, it was not long after the Spring Festival, and all the snakes were dormant, so the risk of being attacked by venomous snakes was greatly reduced.

Liang Ziqiang went to the small hills to look for it. His goal was clear. After searching for several places in a row, he finally saw a light and found an irregular hole on a hill.

The entrance of the cave looks quite large, and several people can walk in side by side without any problem.

"This place is very likely what we are looking for, let's go up and take a look!"

Liang Ziqiang felt that he was close to his goal, so he walked forward with a shovel.

When I arrived at the entrance of the cave and looked deep into it, the darkness inside the cave and the bright spring light outside were like two different worlds.

"You keep an eye on the left, and I'll keep an eye on the right!"

Liang Ziqiang and Deng Zhaocai walked side by side, one on the left and the other on the right, one looking to the left with wide eyes, the other paying attention to the right, and began to grope their way forward into the cave.

At first, I walked slowly, waiting to adapt to the dim light in the cave. Fortunately, although the cave is dark, it is not completely without light. After adapting for a while, I can gradually see the scene inside the cave. The walls on both sides of the cave can be called cliffs, in a vertical state, and there are many large and small rocks on the cliffs.

After taking a few steps forward, they both sniffed at the same time.

In front of the cave, an unprecedented pungent stench came.

Deng Zhaocai felt that it was a bit irritating and wiped his eyes:
"Fuck! How could anything smell so bad? Now I realize that the smell of Afeng's rain boots is quite normal!"

While doing his work, this guy is still obsessed with the pair of rain boots he bought last time.

"If I'm not mistaken, it should be bird droppings and bat droppings. It seems that we have found the right place..."

Just as he finished speaking, two shrill bird calls were heard overhead. Two little birds were returning from outside the cave, flying into the cave, passing over their heads, and flying deeper into the cave.

"There are swifts flying in. You are right. This is where they build their nests!"

The sound of birdsong was like a stimulant, which made Deng Zhaocai feel a hundred times more energetic. Suddenly, even the pungent smell was not so unbearable.

Turning a corner in the cave, I heard more bird calls. My eyes, which had already adapted to the dimness of the cave, gradually discovered that there were indeed twos and threes of swifts roaming in the cracks of the rocks on the cave wall!
But at the same time, the pungent smell became stronger. From time to time, the two of them would step on soft bird droppings, and the feeling of that was indescribable.

It is true that swifts are very hardworking when building nests, but they are not so hardworking as to take care of the hygiene of the entire cave. The bird droppings and bat droppings that have accumulated over the years have never been cleaned up, and the smell is definitely that of aged wine, as strong as it can be...

Liang Ziqiang looked up and roughly estimated that there were more than a hundred bird's nests on the walls of the cave.

At first glance, it is still somewhat spectacular. But in fact, one or two hundred swifts are not considered a large scale. In several large bird's nest producing areas in China, such as the famous Bird's Nest Island next to Coconut Island in the south of the sea, the number of swifts was tens of thousands in the 1980s.

Later, due to the continuous harvesting in the 1980s and 1990s, the number of golden swifts there became less and less, and they were on the verge of extinction. Later, there were basically no bird's nests to harvest there.

Based on the number of swifts they had observed so far, this deserted island at Longjuling could only be considered a very small habitat for swifts.

Perhaps, it is precisely because the number is small, and no one has dared to set foot in Longjuling for decades, so no one knows that there are bird's nests here.

"We really found the bird's nest?" Deng Zhaocai looked up and around, feeling something was unreal.

"If they can build a nest on such a steep stone wall in the cave, what else could it be other than a bird's nest?" Liang Ziqiang asked in return.

"Oh my god, oh my god," Deng Zhaocai said, as if a few more groans were not enough to express his feelings. "Fuck, bird's nest is a treasure that concubines in ancient times loved to eat. It must be very valuable!"

Deng Zhaocai was right about this. Bird's nest is not like yellow croaker, which has only become more valuable in later generations.

Bird's nest has been a delicacy in royal court since ancient times and has always been very valuable.

Deng Zhaocai also knew that bird's nests were valuable, but he didn't know that bird's nests came from swifts. After all, many people know about bird's nests, but fewer people know about swifts.

"But I'm not a monkey. Who can climb up such a steep cliff to pick that thing?"

While excited, Deng Zhaocai became worried again.

"Normally, I can't climb up," Liang Ziqiang tried to touch a stone on the cliff beside him, "but it's different with the valuable bird's nest on it. I feel like I can be stronger than usual!"

There are no miracles in the world, but if you have a lot of money, you can always create miracles.

As Liang Ziqiang was speaking, he began to try to climb up the cliff beside him, aiming at the several bird's nests above his head and trying to move upwards...

Burst

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(End of this chapter)