Great Pied Hornbill Male

Great Pied Hornbill - Buceros bicornis, Male.

Description from Birds of South Asia, The Ripley Guide by Pamela C. Rasmussen and John C. Anderton

An immense pied hornbill with a very large yellow bill and double-ridged casque; black face, throat, mantle and lower breast contrast with buffy nape and neck, white belly and vent. Male has red iris, slaty orbital skin, and black at rear and front of casque; female has pink orbital skin, white iris, and red on rear of otherwise plain casque. Juvenile is duller, with low casque, less distinct dark bill markings, and pale fleshy orbital skin. In flight, note the black wings with a broad white band through coverts and band on trailing edge, and white tail with broad black central band. Preen oil stains white plumage buffy-yellow to varying degree.

Occurs: Resident in Himalayaas of Uttaranchal to Arunachal, lower parts of S Assam hills (including Meghalaya and south to Lushai Hills), NE and SE Bangladesh (rare); disjunctly in W Ghats south of bombay; plains upto 1500m in W Ghats, 2200 m in Himalayas. Local in evergreen and moist deciduous forest.


Habits: Usually in pairs in canopy, rarely descending to ground. Often flies high and far, with 3-4 deep flaps followed by long glide.

Both sexes seal female in nest; female emerges during chick rearing, and chick then re-seals cavity. Feeds on fruits, nestlings and reptiles.

Canon EOS 1D Mark IV, Canon EF 400mm F2.8 L IS USM, EF 2xII, f5.6, 1/320, ISO 3200, full frame image.

Light was too low. I would have loved light to fall on its eyes as the eyes glow nicely.

Wow, amazing shot. Loved the eyes.

Thanks for the info provided.

Regards,
Atul

This is a handsome bird, a personal favourite and one species that I have been wanting to photograph for quite some time. What I like most about the image is how the profile of the bird makes the background very interesting. A little more space at the bottom perhaps to get more of the body and the diagonal perch may have added to the image (purely hypothetical as it is full frame image with a prime), but then again it may dis-balance the image due to the large visual weight of the very prominent bill and the casque.

Is this from the same series as featured in your teaser for the LTM documentary??

Cheers
Dipankar

Dipankar,
This was taken around the same time and part of the documentation of some of the endangered species in the western ghats. I love their colours. Just watching these heavy birds go about searching for food in the canopy in their slow and deliberate manner is very relaxing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

Nice close up considering the condition in which this was photographed.Amazing noise performance of this camera.Noise visible here can be compared to amount of noise usually visible at 800 in cropped sensor cameras:).Beautiful bird nevertheless.Thanks for sharing

Super job! You're quite lucky to have got a close up of this beautiful bird.

tfs

Bhargava

Excellent closeup.Like the compo and Nice details.

TFS
Roopak