His loyalty is important, as she will be sealed up in a tree cavity with the eggs and the chicks for a few months. The male must build trust with the female, so he demonstrates his devotion by bringing her food all year long. Hornbill courtship behaviors include a prospective pair vocalizing to one another, chasing each other, and slapping their bills together. Hornbills at the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park eat a combination of fruit, yams, domestic cat and dog kibble, mice, crickets, and mealworms, with the carnivorous birds getting more meat items than the other types. They eat mice and other rodents, frogs, and even venomous snakes, which they catch by using their long bill as tongs to keep out of harm's way. These patrol their savanna territory on foot in groups of up to a dozen individuals. There are two hornbill species that are unique because they are carnivorous and spend most of their time on the ground: Africa’s Abyssinian or northern hornbills and southern ground hornbills. The larger hornbills tend to eat mostly fruit and travel from tree to tree in pairs or large flocks. The edges of the bill are notched like a saw for grasping and tearing. The birds can use the tip of their bill as a finger to pluck fruit from trees or animals off the ground. Most hornbills are omnivorous and eat a combination of fruit, insects, and other small wildlife. It is also advantageous to roost in large groups-safety in numbers! Hornbills living in forests often roost on the thin outer branch of a tree as protection from climbing predators or on branches under the forest canopy to stay safe from aerial attacks-smaller hornbill varieties can become prey to large owls or eagles. When the day is done, they return to their home tree to roost. Bill care is important, too, and the birds rub their bill and casque frequently across a branch or bark to keep them clean. In between meals, the birds preen themselves and each other and do a bit of sunbathing.
Some go off to forage in pairs or small groups while others gather in flocks that may number in the hundreds. But no matter where they live, hornbills are diurnal, often rising with the sun to preen and call to their neighbors before heading off for a meal. Even elephants in Africa and bears in Asia play a part in a hornbill's life by knocking down tree branches and creating perfect hollows for nesting sites.įound in Africa and Southeast Asia, hornbills live in forests, rainforests, or savannas, depending on species.
Rhinoceros hornbill egg driver#
The smallest hornbill, the red-billed dwarf hornbill, follows squirrels and swarms of driver ants to snatch up the insects that are disturbed. Why? The hornbills benefit by eating all the insects stirred up by the foraging mongooses, and the mongooses gain extra eyes and ears to look out for danger. Eastern yellow-billed hornbills work with dwarf mongooses to gather food! The mongooses wait for the hornbills to arrive before setting out if the hornbills arrive before the mongooses are up and about, the birds call down the mongooses’ burrow. Hornbills have developed some interesting relationships with other wildlife. The casque of the helmeted hornbill from Borneo is different from all other hornbills: its dense, ivory-like casque makes up about 10 percent of the bird's body weight! Unfortunately, this has made it attractive to some people who kill the birds to use the heavy casques for ornamental carvings. The males of some hornbill varieties even compete by knocking their casques together in mid-flight. This may be because males also use their casque to attract mates and display their health and strength to other males. The bill and casque of juvenile birds are underdeveloped, and females often have a much smaller casque than males have. The calls made by the bird range from deep booming sounds as they begin foraging to brays, toots, bellows, and cackles. It is believed that this structure acts as a vibrating chamber to make the hornbill's voice louder. In most hornbills, the casque is a hollow or spongy structure made out of keratin. Their closest relatives are kingfishers, rollers, and bee-eaters. Females and males often have different colored faces and eyes.
This contrasts with the brightly colored neck, face, bill, and casque in many hornbill varieties. Hornbills have a long tail, broad wings, and white and black, brown, or gray feathers. You can easily pick out a hornbill from other birds by a special body part atop their bill called a casque. These birds range from the size of a pigeon to large birds with a 6-foot (1.8 meters) wingspan. I feel pretty: With long eyelashes, dark eyes, and an almost comically large, curved bill, hornbills have many admirers (the eyelashes are modified feathers!).
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