Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Hornbill Love


Mated Pair of Sulawesi Hornbills, Penelopides exarhatus. I started off looking for toucans and soon enough realized that toucans don't have that telltale casque on top of the bill while Hornbills do! Heaven forbid if it was a more mundane looking bird... Our Sulawesi Hornbill friends are found in the tropical lowland, swamps and primary forests of Sulawesi, from sea-level to 1,100 m. They enjoy fruits, figs and insects and the female seals herself into a tree hole/nest to lay eggs and raise the young while the male feeds her. That being said, there was a large nest of twiggs and feathers on a nearby branch. Could be I had the wrong nest or the wrong birds or, perhaps, there were no convenient holes in a tree and a nest was second best. I suppose I'll never know for sure.

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