In late 2012, an Indonesian hornbill conservationist named Yoki Hadiprakarsa received a photo, from a friend, showing stacks of helmeted hornbill heads for sale at an Indonesian village market. These beautiful birds are also frequently shot at by poachers due to confusion with the highly sought-after Helmeted hornbill. Ravinder Kaur and her team in the Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary were—and still are—among a tiny handful of researchers paying close and sustained attention to helmeted hornbills. We stare at that massive head, heavy with its red “helmet”—or casque—atop a wedge of yellow beak. The Rhinoceros Hornbill has a prominent golden-yellow horn, called a casque, on the top of its beak. But HUTAN was busy with the demands of conserving elephants and orangutans and did not monitor the hornbill boxes. She has short black hair and a large red yellow and white beak with casque on her head. Their huge bill and casque are orange and red. Rhinoceros hornbills' casque is made of keratin and is hollow inside. You didn’t see a helmeted hornbill, but good enough to hear it,” he said. HUTAN, which means “forest” in Malay, was founded by primatologists, and its researchers have been studying orangutans in the Kinabatangan sanctuary since the late 1990s; they began studying elephants in 2000. Twins a … The casque of Buceros rhinoceros is believed to amplify the bird's calls. All of the cavities remained unoccupied during the hornbill breeding season. The flying bird also gives a … The chick was still in the nest, fed by the male alone. One wrong move by the fledgling and it might drown in the river. Hornbills must nest in cavities, and for five of the past seven years, the same pair of helmeted hornbills has nested in the hole in the meranti tree, producing a chick each year. As the parents flew down to their fledgling, which was perched unsteadily with its feet wide apart, Ravinder and Sanjitpaal watched in horrified suspense. Helson’s team, led by the researcher Ravinder Kaur, studies hornbills and their nesting activities in the Kinabatangan sanctuary. Hours later, police arrived and searched the forest, but no intruders were found. We stepped into muddy puddles—made by wild boars the night before—and squeezed between rocks, taking care to avoid the gaping holes that plunged into dark underground limestone caves. The rhinoceros hornbill is the national bird of Malaysia. The casque evolved as a resonating chamber to amplify the hornbill’s echoing, otherworldly call. The air smelled green and fresh, but with an underlying note of decay. The most striking feature isn’t their feathers, but what’s protruding from their face. For the past two months, Helson had been watching the hole closely, hoping that it would once again house a family of helmeted hornbills. After graduation, she was hired by the Malaysian Nature Society, where she worked to conserve endemic butterflies and plants. Suddenly, a twig snapped. “We are learning,” Helson said. The plumage is predominately black, with white legs and vent and a white tail with a black band. The birds used only one of the 13 identified natural cavities, and none of the nest boxes. Capable of living more than 30 years, the bird is noted for its prominent casque, a unique helmet-like structure that grows on its beak. She has short black hair and a large red yellow and white beak with casque on her head. A week after I left Kinabatangan, Helson sent me a photo he took near the vacant helmeted hornbill cavity. The most distinctive feature of the Rhinoceros Hornbill Buceros rhinoceros (Vulnerable) is its spectacular horn or “casque”. Rhinoceros Hornbill on The IUCN Red List site -, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros_hornbill, https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22682450/132376232. It is believed that it acts as a resonating chamber and helps birds to sound loudly across a large distance. The female usually lays 1-2 white eggs and incubates them within 40 days. “There is no one single magic number,” says Chin-Aik Yeap, senior conservation officer at the Malaysian Nature Society and a member of the IUCN Helmeted Hornbill Working Group. While some smaller hornbill species can survive in semi-urban or fragmented forests, helmeted hornbills and other large species need vast, contiguous forests with tall, thick-trunked nesting trees. Yoki’s findings shocked the conservation community, and in 2015 the helmeted hornbill was designated as “critically endangered,” just one rung away from “extinct in the wild” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. The rhinoceros hornbill is named for the rhino horn-shaped casque on its beak, which may be used in fighting, to amplify its calls, for courtship displays, or just to knock down fruit for eating. Ravinder and Helson speculate that the birds might be avoiding the lingering smell of epoxy, or might be put off by the lack of moss and lichen on the walls. “We are still scratching our heads,” she said. While many of the other 30 species of Asian hornbills are distinguished by bright-yellow, orange, or white head feathers and beaks, the helmeted hornbill is less showy, with a bare, wrinkled neck pouch, a spray of rust-brown head feathers, and a straight yellow beak. Feet are grayish-green. Encounters with crocodiles, elephants, and wasps are occasional but inevitable hazards. This feature comes from hadrosaurids from more than 60 million years ago. Rhinoceros hornbills make their nests inside tree trunks, and the female stays inside with the eggs and then with the chicks, while the male brings them food. Everything was wet from days of afternoon thunderstorms and late-night drizzles. The Rhinoceros Hornbill, Buceros rhinoceros, is one of the largest hornbills, adults being approximately the size of a swan, 91–122 cm (36–48 in) long and weighing 2–3 kg (4.4–6.6 lbs). Ravinder helped expand the organization’s work to hornbills, and she launched a separate group, called Gaia, dedicated to hornbill conservation. In 2018 and 2019 the rhinoceros hornbill pair returned to the same box, and a second pair nested in another box. After days of waiting, they saw a yellow beak poke out of the slit, followed by a black head and one shoulder. This species is found in elevations of 1,400 m asl in dense lowland forest, hills, dipterocarp forest (Shorea spp. It is from a flock of Rhinoceros Hornbills (around 20) of mixed sex and age group were looking for some ripe fruits on this Spiky Fig tree. She applied to study veterinary science at university, but was instead offered a place in a conservation-biology program—her last choice. While the number of hornbill products available online appears to be declining, experts say, enforcement might have simply driven poachers and traders deeper underground. On July 13, 2013, a rhinoceros hornbill hatched - the first-ever recorded hatch of this species at the Zoo. Rhinoceros hornbills are almost as picky about their nest sites as their helmeted cousins, and the chick was the world’s first rhinoceros hornbill to fledge from an artificial nest box outside of captivity. Gaia and HUTAN have since installed 18 of the new boxes in the forest, but while various hornbill species have visited the boxes, none has nested in them. In December, the fledgling broke out of the cavity and flew off with its father. Native to Southeast Asia, the helmeted hornbill has a solid "horn," or casque, made of keratin, which can be carved into jewelry and intricate objects. The red colour on the casque … When we paused in a small clearing on a rocky hill, we were swarmed by mosquitoes. When it came time for her to choose a new project, the leader of the society’s hornbill program invited her on a field trip, and Ravinder was intrigued by the unusual birds. The nest boxes had failed to replicate the stable and cool environments of the natural cavities, and while a few hornbill species visited them, only a single pair of oriental pied hornbills stayed to build a nest. The rhinoceros hornbill and the great hornbill have very similar nesting behaviors, though they … As you can see, their casques come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, depending on the species. For centuries, the casques have been carved by artisans into elaborate trinkets and ornaments; in the 14th century, Southeast Asian kingdoms paid tribute to the Chinese emperor with gifts of hornbill casques. Improving an existing cavity is cheaper and faster than installing a nest box—as long as you have basic carpentry skills and the courage to climb into the tree canopy. The Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary, which straddles the floodplain of the 350-mile-long Kinabatangan River, is home to a wide array of wildlife: Bornean pygmy elephants, orangutans, crocodiles, and eight species of Asian hornbills, six of which are threatened. 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