Etosha Birdlife #2

Captured with a Canon EOS 3000 shooting on Ektachrome E100

VS slide film and touched up with Lightroom. Unfortunately

cannot recall the name of this species of bird in the Etosha game

park of northern Namibia. I hardly ever take pictures of birds, and

would love comments.

It is a type of Hornbill.

Thanks for sharing.

Regards

Cory,

I'm sure Grayham is on the right track with his hornbill ID.  If I don't know a bird, I go to the whatbird.com bird ID forum.  You have to join and submit a small file, but they have been very good for me.  However they do specialize in US birds, so they may not know this one.

I've had time to look in my old South Africa wildlife books..... you have here, a Red-billed hornbill (Tockus erythrorhynchus). Southern Africa has 3 such Hornbills... the black, the red and the yellow.

An interesting fact about these birds is that at breeding time, they dig out a deep hole in a dead tree into which the female goes and the male "bricks up" the hole with mud leaving a small feeding hole. She then sheds all her feathers to make the nest and lays and incubates the eggs. The male has the relentless task of feeding her, and in time she, feeds the young. Once her feathers have re-grown, the male digs her out and they both continue to feed the young.

Just a bit of trivia, or Grayhampedia (smiles).

Regards