By Roxanne Reid
A big thrill when you’re exploring the savanna and open grasslands of the north and north-east of southern Africa is to come upon a small family of Southern ground hornbills. It’s special because they’re classed as ‘vulnerable’ in the Red Data Book of endangered and threatened species, but also because they’re so entertaining. Case in point: the hunting hornbills of Kruger National Park.
A big thrill when you’re exploring the savanna and open grasslands of the north and north-east of southern Africa is to come upon a small family of Southern ground hornbills. It’s special because they’re classed as ‘vulnerable’ in the Red Data Book of endangered and threatened species, but also because they’re so entertaining. Case in point: the hunting hornbills of Kruger National Park.
You’ll see these large, turkey-sized birds with the eyelashes of a supermodel either in pairs or in groups of up to eight. They forage on the ground, walk stiff-legged and dig into the ground with their fearsome bills in search of food.
What you might not realise is that they’re carnivores of the serious Banting persuasion. Plant life is not at all what they’re looking for. Although they’ll deign to eat insects, they’re at their happiest when they’re scoffing meaty reptiles, frogs, snails, even tortoises and mammals up to the size of a hare. Yes, a hare – my bird bible (Roberts) says so.
I’ve never seen them eating anything quite so big, but on a recent trip to Kruger, we came across four ground hornbills stalking the veld on the lookout for brunch.
I’ve never seen them eating anything quite so big, but on a recent trip to Kruger, we came across four ground hornbills stalking the veld on the lookout for brunch.
One of them caught a brown wriggling thing. A chameleon. The bird dropped it on the ground and stabbed it five or six times quite viciously with its huge bill, picked it up, tossed it in the air and tried to catch it at the right angle to gulp it down. It had to do this three times before everything came together just right and the chameleon disappeared mostly from sight, just a tail and one leg still visible.
The poor creature must have still been fighting for its life because soon out it came again for another few stabs of the beak on the ground. Then the hornbill picked it up, aligned it and finally got it down all the way.
Sometimes when you ask people back at camp if they had a good day, they’re disappointed if they haven’t seen lions. For me, watching lions sleep – as they usually do in the heat of the day – is as boring as peeling potatoes in Pofadder. I’d much rather have some hornbill stab-and-stomp action that keeps me alert and awake, thank you very much.
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