Birds 18 - The Malabar Grey Hornbill

A loud laugh, a hysterical cackle! I got up with a start early morning, opened my eyes. I was in my friend's house in Wayanad It was a Malabar Gray Hornbill we had sighted a few days back in plantations in the slopes below resident of the dense forests too of the hills of the Western Ghats. Wondered when her egg was hatched and she broke the muddy seal of her nest to come out of voluntary seclusion. She has a long sharp beak curved, is fruigivorous, but unlike other hornbill species, she has her casque missing. She has grey brown wings, black primary flight feathers, grey back, heavy orange bills and long white tipped blackish tail. As a large fruit-eating bird, hornbill plays a vital role in dispersing the seeds of about eighty rainforest trees. White cedar trees suffered ninty percent decline in seed dispersal, when hornbill population declined. If there are no hornbills there will be no cedars, no many-other-trees, and may be no man! For, it is for them that it rains still in the forests, in spite of man their trees cutting down and hunting them down!