I missed seeing him in the last three trips of mine. First one was to Pachakkanam -Joseph's uncle's cardamom estate deep inside Periyar tiger reserve- in Oct-08, then two subsequent trips to Valparai. The Valparai trip had given us amazing sightings of the endagered Lion-tailed macaque and the the Nilgiri Tahr. We reached the estate on our second trip- December 09 and Joseph's uncle remarked that our timing couldnt have been better- there were a couple of Giant hornbills coming to a fig tree behind the estate every day. We walked out to have a look and were greeted by a loud 'Kok' call - undeniably the hornbills. This loud call gives him his Malayalam name - Malamuzhakki or he who makes the mountains reverberate. And undeniably he is the state bird of Kerala. We saw them take off elegantly from the trees and disappear higher up into the canopy, and all of us were thrilled to the core....
After our lunch we decided to climb up to the tree where these chaps were supposed to be feeding. It was a leech infested path and most of us got bitten. Finally we reached the top of the climb, but there were no hornbills. We walked off further, and had some sightings of a crested serpent eagle, some white bellied treepies etc. On our way back, I noticed a huge black and white bird on the same fig tree. And then as it turned its head, there was this huge yellow beak, that was revealed to us. It was sitting on the tree, quite close to the road. We set up our tripods and cameras and started firing away. There was a second one sitting on another branch, probably his mate. The rich yellow beak and casque had pink tips, and overall the birds looked in the pink of health as well.He entertained us for a while, and took off with his mate, and sat on a tree further away. As he flew off, his wings made a loud flapping noise that sounded like a whiplash. We moved on, thanking god for this wonderful sighting.
Great Hornbills (Buceros bicornis) mate for life and during times of laying eggs, he seals the female inside a tree hole with mud and his saliva, leaving just her beak out. And he feeds here day in and day out as she lays eggs and hatches them. Once the kids are hatched, the male (mostly malnourished by now)helps in opening the hole and letting the fattened female out. In most cases, if the male hornbill dies in the hand of hunters/ through some other means while the female is nesting, invariably the female dies of hunger as well.
Our second sighting came a day later as we were driving along the forest road, to the estate. Nikhil, our expert sighter noticed something dark in the horizon, flying towards us. We stopped the car and got down. There was a hornbill couple, flying really high, but they being so huge, identifying them wasnt difficult. And the swooshing sound of the wingsweeps were still audible, resonating in the silence of the forest. And they disappeared into the canopy somewhere higher up.
The last spotting was on the last day of our stay in Pachakkanam, when we decided to go back to the hornbill tree. They were there again, picking berries, tossing them up and swallowing them and preening themselves. An estate worker told us that early in the morning, at around 6 am, there would be quite a few of them on the tree, but the others go off later in the day. The duo gave us some more poses and took off from the tree half an hour later. By then we had our hearts and memory cards full of visions of this amazing bird!
Copyright Sandeep Somasekharan, 2009
Fascinating. It's been a long time since I saw these guys. Wonder if our date with them has been jinxed!
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