Billy the Hornbill

This is the story of Billy the Hornbill, found injured on a central Texas ranch on January 28th, 2007, rescued and rehabilitated by three wonderful ladies, Lynne Schaffer, Betty Pollard and Maggie Broyles, and now residing at my place. He's a Silvery-cheeked Hornbill, native to east Africa, and got loose from somebody, somewhere. No zoos within the expected flight range of this bird are missing any (only two Texas zoos have any to begin with -- Gladys Porter and Dallas; and area breeders also don't report any missing birds). Hornbills are not especially strong fliers (they are reminiscent in flight of a Roadrunner), making it nigh impossible one arrived here from Africa on its own. They spend much of their time hunting food on the ground and jumping from branch to branch in large trees. They are omnivores and eat a wide variety of insects, small mammals and fruit.

Silvery-cheeked Hornbill, Bycanistes brevis
Filmed 14 March 2007. Produced by Tony Gallucci, Milk River Film
http://milkriver.blogspot.com

+12

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• Silvery-cheeked
• Hornbill
• bird
• birds
• animals
• Texas
• rescue
• rehabilitation
• tony
• gallucci
• milkriverfilm
• milkriverblog

[birdmanlv]

Do you still have this bird?

[milkriverfilm]

no sorry i don't . . .

[newyorkny5023]

he looks like a toucan are horn bills related to toucans?

[milkriverfilm]

oh, they are somewhat related, but not all that closely. Toucans are New World birds, Hornbills are old world birds.

tg

[newyorkny5023]

what dose old world and new world

[milkriverfilm]

New World means they are found in the western hemisphere -- for toucans that means from Mexico south through South America.

Old world means th eastern hemisphere, for hornbills that means Africa and Asia.

[Xebelan]

He's a lovely creature. Hard to imagine someone would just dump something so wonderful out to die. Good on you for taking care of him.

[varnonzero]

Hey a silverycheek!

I thought somebody didn't know what a hornbill was when I saw "hornbill" in texas.

I love this guys. Good thing he is friendly, last one I had would have beat me up if I ever got near him.

Pretty cool to get a free hornbill like that. I think all the zoos only have males right now, so you might have him for a while. Enjoy!

[Nattviska]

Beautiful bird. Good luck with him =)

[WraithGod]

Oooh, seriously? That's a neat piece of trivia. =)

[KcKiller101]

They used this bird for the movie Alien for it's alarm sound for the space ship when it is about to self destruct.