Oregon birder Lee French sent me this picture from South Africa: “These Red-Billed Hornbills have a little more going on than our Brewer’s Blackbirds.”
The hornbills are Old World omnivores. Many are forest dwellers. They have a unique nesting system. They use nest cavities in trees and the male seals the female in with daubs of med that dry into a shield with a window left open for her beak. The male then feeds the female. The hornbills don’t knock down the mud wall until after the eggs have hatched,
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