Fascinated by hornbills, yet again

I was commissioned to draw the maps for a Philippine biodiversity handbook earlier this year. One set of maps intended to show the distribution of the different species of hornbills in the country. Since the time my fascination for those birds began, this was the first time I had truly realized that there were indeed so many species of Philippine hornbills. Based on a study made by JC Gonzalez, a professor on wildlife studies at the University of the Philippines Los Baños, there were 5 genera of hornbills consisted of 15 species, amazingly found only in the Philippines. The genera Penelopides alone is composed of 8 species, each of which are restricted only in certain islands in the country as shown on the map. You can just imagine that even such a small island like Basilan has its own species of hornbill!

I remembered the first time I encountered hornbills. It was in the remote island of Dinagat, Surigao del Norte in the summer of 2002. I was a fledgling mapping specialist then for an environmental NGO, and at the time, we were conducting a biophysical field assessment of the forest areas there. At one point during the survey, I was climbing Mt. Kambinliw together with a team of biologists who were doing a bird inventory using a 2-kilometer transect line along the slope of the mountain.

It was raining incessantly since the start of the trek. Then after the rain had abated, somewhere halfway on our transect, I heard them. The sound approached from the distance that came closer to us by the second, until they passed us by. Had it not been for the dense tree canopies, we would’ve seen them flying overhead. The somewhat nasal sound that went like “OCK-OCK-OCK-OCK-OCK” came from a group of animals, which could not have been anything else but birds. Probably noticing the puzzled look on my face, Boying Fernandez, a veteran field biologist, had been the one to tell me that the birds we heard were called hornbills, or “kalaw” in the local dialect.

Later on, I was to find out that the particular kind we heard were the Rufous Hornbills, the largest of the Philippine hornbills. I was fortunate to see one of them for the first time in the wild—although it hadn’t mattered much to me then—perched high along the trunk of a large tree located on the adjacent Mt. Redondo. It was a huge bird indeed! And the most distinct feature that left an imprint in my memory was the protruding horn-like appendage on top of its large red beak, which was probably why the birds were named so in the first place.

According to Ompong Altamirano, a seasoned ornithologist and a dear friend of mine, hornbills served as one good indication that a forest was still in good or healthy condition. So if we wanted to know, say, if the forests were still able to support a good and diverse population of different wildlife, we could count on hornbills to tell us that, among other species. It was fascinating hearing their consistent calls, which almost coincided at each top hour of the day (e.g., 8am then 9am) as if they were telling us the time already, although I could not be sure if this was just my imagination.

Subsequent encounters with other species of Philippine hornbills came afterwards. The Mindoro Tarictic, an endangered hornbill, endemic or found only in Mindoro, was rather different from the first one I saw in Dinagat Island. Although it had the same horn-like protrusion above its bill, it was far smaller in size and white lines were present on the sides of its bill. Some had considered it the ugliest of all hornbills, but I had thought otherwise.

On another occasion, I went in search of Philippine Eagles in the southern Sierra Madre in Quezon with another group of biologists. During our observations, we kept seeing a group of Luzon Tarictic Hornbills flying from one portion of a forest patch to another while calling simultaneously. I had learned from that experience that hornbills were known predators of Philippine Eagle chicks, although the tides were turned when the eagles themselves had become mature and started hunting themselves. Given the dwindling numbers of Philippine Eagles in the wild, as described by Mads, I could not have imagined that predation by hornbills could have even been one of the probable reasons why.

Then last year, during my mapping work in the forests of Polillo Islands of Quezon Province, I heard the call of Polillo Tarictic while in flight. Despite the fragmented and disturbed condition of the forests of the islands—mainly as a result of large-scale logging in the past and continued forest conversion for agricultural purposes—it is fortunate that the subspecies still thrive. Habitat loss, according to JC Gonzalez, is the main threat to the survival of the hornbill population in the islands. The town of Polillo saw it appropriate to respond to the species’ predicament by passing a municipal ordinance that protects wildlife from poaching, and by adopting the Polillo Tarictic Hornbill as their municipal flagship species and holding an annual Tarictic Festival.

I doubt that I’ve had my last opportunity to encounter a hornbill in the wild, let alone learn something new about them. My next one could just probably be my first time to see a successfully captive-bred hornbill, or hopefully I might be lucky enough to see the Sulu Hornbill in the wild—reportedly last seen in 1995—if ever I return to Tawi-Tawi. I look forward to those, how ever it may be.

[Photo credit: Rufous Hornbill by The ZooTrotters]