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Writer's pictureSarita Ravindranath

Watching the Great Pied Hornbill


“So, you’re travelling 600 km in the hope of meeting someone who doesn’t really want to see you?”


A friend’s question comes back to me as we get ready for a unique walk organised by the Pollachi-based Thadam Experiences - The Great Hornbill Congregation at Anally Estates near Valparai.


We are hoping for a glimpse of the Great Pied Hornbill. The high-flying bird with the yellow casque (a hollow, helmet-like structure) is large enough to be spotted from a distance. But birds are notoriously moody. And as any unlucky amateur birder would tell you, the further you travel to see a bird, the higher the chance that your pretty feathered friend would stand you up.


Lingesh, our guide, is confident of a sighting. It’s a balmy September evening, and it’s courtship season for the Great Hornbill, a bird with many fascinating behavioural traits.


The coffee and tea gardens of Anally Estates are interspersed with patches of rainforest. Between September and December, the Maesopsis eminii berry ripens and the hornbills come in droves to feast on their favourite fruit. The exclusive itinerary developed by Thadam Experiences aims to let birders and photographers witness the incredible sight of this Great Congregation.

After a ride through crooked, unpaved roads and stretches of coffee and tea, we begin our walk.




There are sounds of life all around us: A group of yellow-billed babblers noisily fend off a threat. Woodpeckers focus on their headbanging. A pair of bulbuls coo on a branch. The cicadas reach out to comrades in other trees with their classic symphony.


All of a sudden, the orchestra around us fades into the background.


There’s a Whoosh in the air. And a flash of black and yellow.


The Great Hornbill, whispers Lingesh, and we automatically lower our voices.


The rhythmic flapping of the large bird’s wings mutes everything, even the sound of your own breathing. For a moment, you’re transported to a parallel, pre-human world ruled by these beautiful creatures.


The Malayalam name for the Great Pied Hornbill seems most appropriate at this point. Malamuzhakki Vezhambal. The one whose sound reverberates through the mountains.


In myth, art and popular songs in Kerala, the Great Hornbill is pictured looking up to the skies in the middle of a hot summer, wailing for the first drops of rain to fall down its throat.



To modern environmentalists, though, these great birds are the Farmers of the Forest, a reference to their role in seed dispersal as they fly large distances and spit out the seeds of the fruits they eat.

As we walk further down a steep path, more of the hornbills come into view. From our vantage point, we watch these majestic creatures in silence as they hop sideways through branches. They move with an awkward, gentle grace. Giving them company on the Maesopsis eminii tree are Mountain Imperial Pigeons who, too, relish the sweet and sour purple fruit of the tree.


The Maesopsis tree is not native to the region. It was first planted by the British as a shader for coffee plants.


The hornbills eat as some humans eat peanuts. They throw the fruit up in the air and then toss it into their throat with a quick jerk of the head.


Lingesh tells us that had we visited a few weeks ago, we may have seen a truly dramatic spectacle. At the beginning of the mating season, the male hornbills put on an aerial show of beauty to impress the female. Two males may engage in a head to head casque-butting in the air for the benefit of female spectators.


Hornbills are said to mate for life. A few months on, it would be nesting season for these hornbills. The female is “imprisoned” in its nest, the natural cavity of a tall tree. Both mates seal the entrance of the nest with dung and pellets of mud. The female sheds her skin and the male brings in food several times a day until the eggs hatch.


As we watch and listen to the grunts of the giant birds against a splendid setting sky, it’s hard not to be inspired by these precious creatures who have found new ways to survive even as we encroach into and destroy their spaces.


Perhaps, it’s worth taking a 600 km ride to remind yourself that despite what you watch on the Television news, it’s still a very beautiful world out there.


A version of this article appeared here


Photographs by Chetan Asher


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