Towheeblog

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,