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Welcome to the Thai Riviera on the Gulf of Siam
Hornbills in South ThailandFrom fossil records, we know that the family of hornbills made its appearance on earth more than 50 Million years ago. Today 54 species are spread from Africa and India to Australia, where they inhabit the tropical rainforests. They are often seen as indicators for a healthy forest as they heavily rely on the existence of century old emergent trees that can be found only in such forests.
Since 1980, intensive research on the 13 different hornbill species found in Thailand has been carried out at several wildlife sanctuaries and national parks. Measuring up to 1.5 meters in length, tropical hornbills are shy and elusive birds that spend most of their lives high in the canopy of the rain forest. They are omnivore, whose varied diet consists mainly of fruit but also includes insects, reptiles, molluscs and even small birds. Their favorite meal by far, however, is the fruit of the strangler fig. These magnificent birds are under severe threat, caused by habitat loss and poachers, who follow the male on its regular visits to the nesting site to capture the adult birds and chicks for sale to collectors through the illegal bird trade. Since 1993, the Hornbill Research Foundation based at Bangkok Mahidol University, has streamlined and improved the research and tried to convince poachers to give up their lucrative business and offer their intimate knowledge about the birds and their nesting sites to the Hornbill Research Foundation instead. Many of them are working today as field assistants, observing the nest sites and protecting the birds and earn their money from international visitors who come to the sites and are willing to pay for the services of knowledgeable guides. 10 hornbill species are native to Southern Thailand and some inhabit the remote areas of the bigger islands. You might be lucky to come across a giant black and white bird with a characteristic horn-like casques atop its beak or you might see it flying between the islands with the characteristic noise that is produced by the lack of wing covet feathers and can be heard up to a mile off. This is the Great Hornbill, the most common one in the last rain forests of Thailand. When the breeding season starts in January, the hornbill pair that mated for life will start looking for a suitable nesting site. This is a hole in one of the highest forest trees that emerge out of the forest canopy to 30 or 40 metres. It can be a natural cavity or a hole dug buy another kind of bird into the trunk of the tree. Fruiting trees in the vicinity, especially figs, will give this site an advantage. As soon as a nest site is found, they mate and the female enters the trunk hole and both start to build up a wall of mud, debris and dried grass that will finally leave only a narrow slit open, through which she can be fed by the male. For 3-4 months, until the rainy season begins, the female in its prison-type hole depends solely on the male hornbill, which will feed her. During this time she also looses her feathers that are used for preparing the nest. So if the male will not return to the nesting site, the female will not be able to forage for food, even she might be able to break down the wall. The male tirelessly flies between the nest and fruiting trees to feed the female through the slit while the female bird is incubating her eggs. When the chicks have hatched, the amount of fruits, that the male has to regurgitate into the females bill can easily double, leaving few food for the male to feed itself.
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