This is one of the local ornithological glories – the Great Hornbill.  This guy is unusually cooperative, from a photographer’s point of view, sunning himself on the branch in the front of the aviary, not so high that I get only a shot of his rear, and obligingly turning his head so I can focus on his casque.  Sometimes he stretches his neck back so that his casque rests on his back.  When he does that it still looks like a beak, hardly even upside down.  This is the bird the keepers take out to do their demos for the visitors, so I guess he’s used to showing off.  Yes, he has a mate in the same cage, and I think they’ve managed to reproduce.

A great hornbill like this crashed into an apartment window near Orchard Road (the big shopping district) in September, then fell into a mud puddle.  It recovered and flew away, but left cracks in the glass and a very large impression in the mud, visible to my daughter when she passed by later in the day.  (She knew what had caused it because a schoolmate of hers was looking out the window when the bird bashed it.)

November 16th, 2008 | Category: Birds, Uncategorized | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL