27 Jan, 2008

Sealed up inside a tree trunk, the nesting female and her chicks depend on the male to deliver food.

Yesterday we found the site of a great hornbill nest here in Thailand’s Khao Yai National Park and I returned early this morning in the hope of seeing the male bird bringing food to the female.

Great hornbills (Buceros bicornis) take over cavities in trees to nest, partially sealing up the entrance to help deter predators. Once the female is sealed inside the male brings food for her, and later for the chicks too. At first he will bring fruit, mainly small figs from the banyan trees for the female, but as the chicks hatch and start to develop he will also bring small animals such as insects and even snakes.

I wasn’t sure how many times in a day the male would visit the nest, but I was lucky this morning. No sooner had I got the camera set up than I heard the deep hum of a hornbill’s wingbeats and the male came into view.

He perched outside the narrow slit in the tree trunk and fed the female one fig at a time. I could see him tilting his head downwards in order to bring up one of the many fruits stored in his crop and skilfully catch it at the very end of his beak. He would then pass this in to the female, and repeated the process again and again.

He stopped feeding a few times and went to sit on a branch nearby – perhaps with one eye on me, but then perceiving that I wasn’t a threat he returned to his feeding duties.

In the excitement of seeing this huge bird I neglected to count how many figs he passed in to the female but I would say at least 30.

These birds measure up to 1.22m (4ft) in length and are one of the unmistakable creatures of the forest.

– by Darryl Sweetland, Earth-Touch crew © Earth-Touch

Comments

Please log in or join to post a comment.