Great Hornbill

Name: Great hornbill

Diet: Mostly sugary fruits such as figs but also small mammals, birds, eggs, amphibians, reptiles, and insects

Behaviour: Diurnal and social

Lifespan: 35-40 years in the wild

Size: 3kg in weight - 95-120cm in length with a 151-178cm wingspan

Habitat/Range: Wet evergreen and deciduous old-growth forests in India, Bhutan, Nepal, mainland Southeast Asia, and Sumatra

Threats: Habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation, poaching, illegal wildlife trade

Conservation Status: Vulnerable

Names & Nicknames: Great hornbill, Concave-casqued hornbill, Great Indian hornbill, Indian hornbill, Great pied hornbill

Size: Great by name, great by nature. We're talking about one of the largest hornbill species, weighing around 3kg and measuring up to 1.2m in length, with a 1.8m wingspan (as wide as a super king-size bed!). Both males and females sport an impressive casque (from the French word for helmet), an extension of the peak that forms a hollow helmet on top of their head. We aren't entirely sure why they have this; perhaps it's to impress mates, fight off rivals, or perhaps it helps amplify a hornbill's cries. All we know is that it looks pretty damn cool.

Communication: Great hornbills love a natter, and they've got all kinds of languages, from deep growls to laughs and a mating ‘kok’ call, which can resonate through the forest and be heard from 800m away! Hornbills are strong fliers and also noisy ones, producing a tell-tale ‘whooshing’ noise as they fly. Some researchers believe these wing whooshes may also be used to communicate with each other.

Favourite Hangout: Period properties, mostly. They love old forests in hilly areas where there are plenty of ancient tall trees sticking out above the canopy – the perfect nesting spots. Home birds by definition, they find the perfect tree with a natural cavity for their nest, then return to it year after year. The female will be locked inside the nest, as the cavity hole is mainly filled with a mixture of mud and poo, while she incubates and raises the chicks. The male will then act as the food provider, so a good nest site is vital! Unfortunately, these ancient trees are also often the target of loggers, so finding a home is as hard as finding somewhere to rent within your budget.

Favourite Snack: Not too fussy. Great hornbills eat mainly fatty fruits and then a selection box of small animals, including birds and mammals. But, if you were wondering about their dream food, it's figs. Make sure you've got plenty in the house before inviting them round, though; they can scoff 200 figs in a single sitting!

Eating Habits: Great hornbills will hop along branches while foraging for fruit and other tasty morsels and they can be pretty ruthless predators, taking eggs and fledgling birds from other birds' nests. Once an unsuspecting morsel is found they are grabbed with the hornbill's impressive beak and are tossed into the air and swallowed, not the best way to go...

Toilet Humour: A female and her chicks will spend several months sealed into a tree with just a small entry hole through which the male will pass food. As that hole is the only way in, it is also the only way out... so a female will raise her bum up to the hole to do her business, hopefully not while the male is flying in to land. It is a bit harder for a small chick to reach this toilet/food hole, so their... business, is used to carry out repairs to the nest. And that's not the only use for hornbill poo, they also act as a very important seed disperser for the forest. As they fill up on lots of fruit, they then poop out the seeds all over the forest, so the seeds are already equipped with a ready-to-go fertiliser, talk about sustainability!

Love Language: When a species mates for life, courtship is important to create that bond. Hornbills don’t have Tinder and can't take each other to the movies, so they court in a slightly different way. Competition can be fierce, and males engage in head-to-head (literally) combat, butting their casques against each other mid-flight to compete for females. When a couple does get some alone time, courting can begin with a sing-song duet where the male will produce a ‘kok’ call that the female will replicate until their songs merge and they start calling together in unison, and they don't look back from that. Romeo and Juli-who?

If you see them: If you see one on its own during the first half of the year – smile, you're in the presence of love. Why? There's a good chance it’s a male looking for food to feed its life partner while she hides away in their poo palace looking after the chicks. Or if you see a couple together, they're probably a breeding pair, probably squabbling away like married couples do. You can tell the males and females apart as the males are slightly larger with red eyes whilst the females are a little smaller and have blueish-white eyes.

Red Flags: Great hornbills love long stretches of untouched old forests with plenty of large trees to nest in. Unfortunately, so do loggers. Because of this, habitat destruction and fragmentation are major threats to these birds, and without adequate trees to nest in, there will be no more future generations of these great birds. Even when there's a forest for them, they still aren't safe, as hornbill species such as the Great Hornbill are also poached for their meat, and so their casque can be carved into ornaments.

Epic Journeys: Great hornbills are generally sedentary, meaning they don’t migrate and will stay in their home range. However, when needs must, like the search for a suitable nest or a tasty fig tree, they'll go far and wide. Especially as more and more forests are lost and fragmented!

Glow-up: Once a female is boarded up in her nest hole, she normally lays two eggs, but usually only one will hatch. Mum will stay with the chick for around 5 weeks, after which she'll go all prison break, smashing her way out while the chick reseals the hole from the inside. But don't fret – this is the precursor to 10 weeks of table service. Both parents bring food to the chick until it's eventually independent, and it's time for it to break out and begin its own hornbill story. These young birds won’t get their signature casque for the first 6 months of life, and it takes 5 years to fully develop! A horny-bill couple will do this quite a few times, bringing up to 40 new chicks into the world during their lifetime.

Facts: Stop the press – these birds are never thirsty! Not only are they monogamous, so once they find a mate, they aren't thirsting after any more tail feathers – they also get enough water from their diet, so they never need to drink.

Who are they in the friendship group: Your good-looking, noisy friend that you don’t see much because they are constantly with their partner.

How threatened are they: Vulnerable