Silvery-cheeked Hornbill

Silver cheeks hornbill in the Lake Manyara National Park

The silver cheeks Hornbill ( Bycanistes brevis ) is a species of bird in the family of the hornbills. He lives in East Africa, in southern Ethiopia and Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania to Malawi. In mountainous regions, it occurs at altitudes up to 2500 meters, in the lowlands, he is a pure forest dwellers. In the mountain forests of northern Tanzania and in coastal forests of Kenya, it is the most common hornbill.

Features

The silver cheeks hornbill is 66 to 74 inches long, the beak reaches a maximum length of 20 centimeters. The sip top of the male has the shape of an inverted cradle diameter and is of an off-white color, the smaller the female has the same brownish color as the beak.

Wings, breast and belly are black. Of related species, such as the trumpeter hornbill (B. buccinator) and the gray cheeks Hornbill ( B. subcylindricus ) it can be distinguished best by its completely black wings.

Way of life

Silver cheeks hornbills live in pairs. On fruit trees often several pairs may be encountered. Your flight is noisy, the voice loud and sounds like a harsh grunt, comparable to that of the gray cheeks horn bird.

The British ornithologist Reginald Ernest Moreau has researched the birds intensive. As with other hornbills nesting females immured in a tree hollow. Contributes the male per day up to 235 Erdkügelchen breeding cave einspeichelt it in his throat. The saliva serves as a binder, not the feces of the female, as with most other hornbills. The female must add 15 bis 17 weeks persevere in the breeding cave and is fed by the male during this time, which brings about 24,000 fruits at this time. There flies the breeding cave about 1600 times.