Top 13 amazing Yellow-billed Hornbill facts

Below is our top 13 amazing Yellow-billed Hornbill facts you should know

Yellow-billed Hornbill has long yellow decurved beak, males with a casque above. It has bare red skin around and below eyes, at the base of the bill. Eyes are yellow. It has dark grey forehead and centre of crown, extending to the nape. Head sides are whitish. Short strong legs and feet are dark grey.

1. The Yellow Billed Hornbill is common and widespread in South Africa, in National Kruger Park.
2. It is distinguished by its very large, downwardly curved yellow beak.
3. The bird feeds mainly on the ground. It forages for seeds, insects, spiders, but also scorpions. It may catch snakes, which it kills by beating them strongly on a hard surface. It swallows the whole prey, and rejects indigestible parts.
4. The species is known to forage co-operatively with dwarf mongoose, catching prey items that the mongoose scratch up from the ground. In return the hornbills alert the mongoose to danger from overhead raptors.
5. There have been records of hornbills waiting expectantly at mongoose burrows, eager for the foraging to begin.
6. The Yellow Billed Hornbill has a very distinctive clucking call. Once one bird starts calling, the whole group will often join in, creating a cacophony of sound.
7. In the bushveld you will often see two hornbills sitting together, clucking away with very entertaining wings open, back and forth rocking, head bowing display.
8. The bird can be seen solitary, in pairs or small groups.
9. It is active during the day, but mostly at dawn and dusk. It roosts high in trees during the night.
10. The Yellow Billed Hornbill nests in a hole in a tree. This cavity is lined with dry grasses and leaves. How much do you know about tiger facts?
11. Breeding season is September to March (mainly October/November) and they nest in hollows in trees. The female seals herself and the eggs inside the hollow with mud and saliva.
12. The female will lay 3 to 5 eggs, incubation will be about 24 days by the female only.
13. About 20 days after the first egg hatches, the female breaks out of the nest and the entrance is partly sealed again – a small hole is left open through which the young are fed – after a further 22 to 27 days the young birds break out of the nest.