Wordless Wednesday: Flight of the Hornbill

By Sandeep Somasekharan
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Encounter: Malabar Grey Hornbill

The next time you hear a chuckle from the treetops or endearing squeaks and musical caws, look out for the Malabar Grey Hornbill. Or maybe a whole flock!

What's so different about the Malabar Grey Hornbill (Ocyceros griseus) compared with the other three hornbills found in the Western Ghats? The casque, of course. Rather, the absence of it. Although the attention-grabbing casque -- the horn in hornbill -- is not present in this southern species, the bright orange bill (in males) makes up for it and you realise the true meaning of the word "Hornbill". The bill is shaped exactly like a cow's horn, which is the literal meaning of its family name, Bucerotidae. This it uses mainly to feed on fruits and berries although they also catch small vertebrates. All hornbills are grouped under the order Coraciiformes, which includes rollers, bee-eaters and kingfishers.

Malabar Grey Hornbills, like most other hornbills, are sexually dimorphic -- males have a bright orange bill with a yellow tip, while females have a yellow bill with a black base. The plumage of both sexes are mainly greyish with a broad white supercilium running down to  the neck.

While the Indian Grey Hornbill occurs in the plains, Malabar Grey Hornbills birds are endemic to the Western Ghats. They are believed to mate for life and are secondary cavity nesters, which means they use existing tree cavities and do not excavate their own for nesting. These nesting sites are used year after year. As with many other hornbills, females imprison themselves in the cavity while nesting and undergo a complete moult, losing all their body feathers. They emerge after the eggs hatch. During this time it is up to the male to feed her through a narrow slit in the cavity. Perhaps one of the reasons for the hornbills' long bills may be to pass food through this slit. Of course, this is my surmise and I am open to correction.

After a fleeting glimpse of this bird at Agumbe three years ago I observed them to my heart's content at Dandeli earlier this year. As we (the Ogres) were busy observing the larger Malabar Pied Hornbills at the timber depot in the heart of Dandeli town, a few of these birds landed on fruiting trees nearby and posed for us. It was interesting to observe them feeding on berries.


Although these birds are relatively common in the Western Ghats and are listed by the IUCN as LC (Least Concern), their rapidly shrinking habitat is a cause for worry.


Text and photographs: Arun
Additional photograph: Sandeep Somasekharan


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Gluttony in the Timber Graveyard

The Timber Depot in Dandeli presents a feast for both bird and birdwatcher, and then some rumination

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.
- Henry David Thoreau

The Timber Depot at Dandeli is a living graveyard, if that oxymoron makes any sense. It stands right in the heart of this sylvan north Karnataka town, which the virile Kali river cleaves in two as it hurries to the sea about a hundred kilometres away at Karwar. One hot afternoon in April, we crossed a bridge over the river (gawking at the heft of an enormous marsh crocodile basking on an islet) and arrived at the timber depot. We had barely entered when it struck us that this place had more hornbills than we had collectively bargained for. 

An enormous mugger basks in the afternoon sun beside the swollen Kali river

It also struck us that the Karnataka Forest Department, like forest departments everywhere in India, exists for the primary purpose of generating revenue from natural resources. For everything else besides timber was an aside, not even meriting a rounding error in its account books. 

In the timber depot large trees, bare of leaves but laden with rotund yellow fruit, stood like fairytale giants, their tentacled fingers stretching skyward. At their feet lay corpses of their kith and kin, their sawn trunks stacked in neat heaps on the dry earth. From towering living things they had been degraded to commodities. Now they were known as rosewood, jackwood, teakwood – wood being the operative suffix. 

A Malabar Grey Hornbill takes a burp break

The evening light softened the mood, lending to the recumbent logs a sobering burnish. Above me, the canopies were aflutter with so much avian activity that I had trouble deciding where to look. We were just recovering from the surfeit of Malabar Pied Hornbills, which were ubiquitous, and gazing with satiated boredom upon flocks of Malabar Grey Hornbills. Glossy-black male Asian Koels and their speckled mates, White-cheeked and Coppersmith Barbets, Plum-headed Parakeets, Pompadour Green Pigeons and Chestnut-tailed Starlings feasted on the cornucopia of yellow fruit, barely shuffling at the disturbance caused by our gawking selves. 

A female Pompadour Green Pigeon makes love to its meal

A Coppersmith Barbet appears to be lost in thought before it takes another bite

Against the relentless symphony of cicadas an Indian Roller sallied about, flaunting its brilliant cerulean hues in vain as we ignored it for the hornbills. A troop of Hanuman Langurs, comprising overgrown adult males, subadults and females with infants, pillaged the trees of fruit and leaves. Giant squirrels stuffed their mouths. Mynas and crows hung around, unable to resist the opportunity to dig in. 


What was this manna that got the entire animal kingdom in raptures, I wondered. I picked up a fallen fruit and bit into it. It was tough-rinded but juicy, not sweet but leaning towards sour, and otherwise unremarkable. It left an acidic aftertaste. I spat it out.

A pair of Malabar Giant Squirrels were delightful to watch as they ate meditatively in the canopy

Yet, with so much to behold, the trees and their supine carcasses haunted my thoughts. Did this charming evening spent at this necropolis signify something more: perhaps the oncoming eventide for all of our great old-growth forests and their guardians, the hornbills? 

As my eyes wandered about the yard, I picked out signs of humanity – the gaudy saris of women ambling down the depot's main thoroughfare presented hopeful hues against the sombre dullness of the trees, and I saw the simple joys of companionship in the resigned contentment of an elderly couple using a hefty log as a park bench. 

Perhaps this forest represented much more than it actually stood for – it was a landmark of nature's resilience, her unstinting will to push on in despite the looming spectre of imminent loss that the great darkness of human civilization would inevitably bring. And then, after our time, perhaps the forest's soul shall be rekindled again, gilded by the hopeful rays of a new sunrise. 

We bade farewell to the sleeping logs before sunset as the sounds of the great feast echoed behind us -- the last suppertime squabbles of the hornbills and the frantic whoops of the langurs as they settled domestic tiffs. There is still a good hour to go before lights out, the birds seemed to think. We might as well eat.

The sleepers that lived and died wait, the far advanced
are to go on in their turns, and the far behind
are to come on in their turns,
The diverse shall be no less diverse, but they shall
flow and unite
--they unite now.


Gluttony in the Timber Graveyard from Green Ogre on Vimeo.


From Sleepers by Walt Whitman

Encounter: The Malabar Pied Hornbill

A timber yard in Dandeli, Karnataka offers some of the best views you can have of the threatened Malabar Pied Hornbill When you mention Dandeli, people respond in two ways. "Rafting!" exclaim the majority. The others enthusiastically say: "Hornbills!" On our trip, we (Sahastra, Bijoy, Andy, Satish and I) didn't even consider the former.

Four species of Hornbills are found in the Western Ghats. At Dandeli, it was the Malabar Pied Hornbill (Anthracoceros coronatus) that held our rapt attention for over two hours. After catching mere glimpses of these birds the previous day close to the core area of the reserve, we were in for a treat as we entered the timber depot in the heart of Dandeli town. Just as we alighted from our vehicle at the entrance to the depot, we saw a flurry of movement on a fruiting tree. Our jaws dropped. When the folks at the Kulgi Nature Camp told us that we would find hornbills at the depot, we imagined that they were referring to the commoner Malabar Grey Hornbill (Ocyceros griseus). But here, as we watched open-mouthed, four or five Malabar Pied Hornbills, among the most endangered hornbills in India, fed on berries while several others flitted around just about everywhere.

The Malabar Pied Hornbill is primarily a frugivore, feeding mainly on figs. Hence they play a vital part in the dissemination of seeds. Their preferred habitat is lowland riparian forest (adjoining a large water-body such as a stream, river or lake). The Dandeli Timber Depot, where we saw them, is close to the Kali river.

Getting ready to swallow

They were flying about everywhere

Although these birds are categorised as 'NT' (Near Threatened) by the IUCN, they did not appear to be threatened here. Like B2 bombers, they would appear out of nowhere, transfix us with their graceful glides, and disappear as swiftly as they had arrived.

Incoming...

Transfixing...

Disappearing...

Hornbills are classified under the family Bucerotidae in the order Coraciiformes. Birds of the this family are characterized by long, downward-curving bills which resemble horns. In some species the bill has a casque on the maxilla (upper jaw/beak). The scientific name of the family refers to the bill's shape -- "Buceros" meaning cow's horn in Greek. Hornbills are the only birds in which the axis and atlas (the first and second vertebrae) are fused together. This skeletal structure is believed to help support the huge bill, better. They are also the only birds with a two-lobed kidney (in all other birds it is three-lobed). The casque is mostly hollow and is made up of keratin (the same material that makes up the beak).

The large downward-curving beak is characteristic of hornbills

The use of the casque is a subject that is widely debated. Some consider that it serves as an indicator of the bird's age, sex etc. There are others who contend that it is used in fighting rivals or for displays. Some are of the opinion that it helps to amplify the make the bird's call and make it resonant.

The Malabar Pied Hornbill's casque is more than half of its beak in length and the posterior ends in black

The female bird can be easily differentiated from the male by the white region around the eye. In the male this region is completely black. The Malabar Pied Hornbill, like many other hornbills, are monogamous. They build their nests in the hollows of large tree-trunks. The female then imprisons herself inside the hollow by sealing the opening with a plaster that is mainly made up of mud, faeces and fruit pulp. During this time it is up to the male to feed her. This he does by passing food through a slit in the sealed opening. During incubation, the female undergoes a complete and simultaneous moult (shedding of existing feathers and growing new ones). Perhaps the old feathers serve as lining material for the nest by the time the chicks hatch (this is my surmise and it is gladly open to correction). When the chicks hatch and the nest cavity becomes too small to accommodate all of them, the mother breaks open the seal and emerges. She then starts assisting the male in feeding the chicks.

A Female Malabar Pied Hornbill - The characteristic creamish-white around the eye is clearly visible

A Male Malabar Pied Hornbill - The eye is surrounded by black

IUCN justifies classifying these birds as Near Threatened based on the extent of continuing habitat loss. Within a short span of just 16 years the bird has been moved to this category from the 'LC' (Least Concern) status. The felling of old-growth trees, which the birds require to nest and breed, impacts their ability to multiply as it takes several decades for young trees to attain a size that is conducive for the hornbills' nesting.

The sun started to set and we had to leave soon. I sat on a log and watched as a male hornbill clambered up a tree to its top to reach a female that was perched there. As he hopped from one branch to another, he did something very curious - he would bend his neck and look underneath every branch as if searching for something. He continued until he reached the female. Unfortunately, I couldn't understand the reason for this peculiar behaviour.

The male inspecting the underside of a branch

Once the male reached the female, the pair proceeded to groom each other and display several other courtship or bonding rituals. They clasped beaks and gripped each others' necks in their beaks.

The pair clasping beaks

As we watched the mutual grooming behaviour of the pair, Beej mused,"Isn't this a call for conservation in itself?" Unless the habitat that they require to sustain themselves in terms of food and nesting sites is maintained strictly, these birds might be lost to the next category of IUCN.

But there is hope. The sight of these birds moving about fearlessly and living in such close proximity to humans in the heart of a busy town proves that it is possible for man and bird to co-exist.

Text and photographs by Arun Menon

Additional Photographs by Anand Yegnaswami and Bijoy Venugopal