Commitment and Trust

Featured animal: Malabar pied hornbill (Anthracoceros coronatus)

 Photo credit: None

Location:  Dandeli, India

The male of the Malabar pied hornbill pair sits at the entrance of the nest and feeds fruit to the female through the slit in the sealed nest. You can see the tip of the females beak in my painting.  Like all hornbills, the Malabar pied too has this strange and unique habit of sealing the female in the nest hole through egg laying, incubating, and hatching.  The female depends exclusively on the male bringing her food for survival.  She only exits when the young begin growing and space becomes a problem. Then she too participates in feeding of young through the sealed hole. We observed this behavior firsthand at the Timber Depot in Dandeli.