HORNBILLS
1. Introduction
- The logo for India's G20 presidency was unveiled recently at the Hornbill festival in Nagaland.
- This festival showcases the art, culture & cuisine of Nagaland, including the most magnificent birds in India.
- The Great Hornbill is found in the Himalayan foothills, the Northeast & the Western ghats.
- With a wingspan of 5 feet, it presents an awesome spectacle while landing on a perch.
- The wreathed hornbill, the brown hornbill, and the rufous-necked hornbill are slightly smaller & only found in Northeast India.
- A great place to spot the oriental pied hornbill is the Rajaji National Park, Uttarakhand.
- The Malabar grey hornbill's loud laugh echoes in the western ghats.
- The smallest of the group, the Indian grey hornbill is found all over & is often spotted in urban settings like Theosophical Society gardens, Chennai.
- Their large, heavy beaks pose some limitations for balance, the first two vertebrae are fused.
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- Hornbills prefer tall trees for their nests, with their height being 1.5 meters or more.
- There is a mutualism between these birds & the trees where they nest.
- As large fruit-eating birds, hornbills play a vital role in dispersing the seeds of about 80 rainforest trees.
- Trees like Cup-calyx white cedar suffer a 90% decline in seed dispersal beyond the parent tree when the hornbill population decline.
- The towering Tualang tree of Southeast Asia is entwined in folklore that it is considered taboo to feel this tree.
- It is the preferred habitat of the helmeted hornbill.
- The fruiting season coincides with the birds' reproductive cycle.
- Traditional ecological knowledge stresses the value of hornbills in dispersing the seeds, which are expectorated from birds' throats.
3. Hunting
- Tall trees are the first targets of illegal logging & there is a slow decline in hornbill numbers, as reflected in bird counts.
- It is slow because these birds are long-lived for nearly 40 years.
- Their large size makes them prone to hunting.
- The helmeted hornbill of Sumatra & Borneo is critically endangered because of its helmet-like casque called red-ivory, which is highly-priced.
- Hornbill population appears to be faring better in South India.
- The Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysuru collected data to show that forest plantations are not suited for hornbill populations.
- The adaptable nature of hornbills is seen in their feeding on the fruits of the African Umbrella tree, which was introduced as a shade tree in coffee plantations.
For Prelims
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For Prelims: Rajaji National Park, Sumatra & Borneo , The Great Hornbill
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Source: The Hindu
