Southern Ground Hornbill | Kruger National Park

A small flock of endangered Southern ground hornbills in the North of the Kruger National Park.
The southern ground hornbill is a vulnerable species, mainly confined to national reserves and national parks. They live in groups of 5 to 10 individuals including adults and juveniles. Often, neighbouring groups are engaged in aerial pursuits. They forage on the ground, where they feed on reptiles, frogs, snails, insects and mammals up to the size of hares. Southern ground hornbills very rarely drink: their range is limited at its western end by the lack of trees in which to build nests.

Southern ground hornbill groups are very vocal: contact is made by calls in chorus which can usually be heard at distances of up to 3 kilometres (1.86 mi). The calls allow each group to maintain its territories, which must be as large as 100 square kilometres (40 sq mi) even in the best habitat.

The southern ground hornbill is an obligate cooperative breeder, with each breeding pair always assisted by at least two other birds. It is known via experiments in captivity that birds without six years experience as helpers at the nest are unable to breed successfully if they do become breeders. This suggests that unaided pairs cannot rear young and that helping skill as a juvenile is essential for rearing young as an adult.

In captivity, a maximum lifespan of 70 years is recorded, and it is generally believed that the life expectancy of a bird that survives long enough to fledge is as high as thirty years or more, which is comparable to more famously long-lived birds like the wandering albatross.

Ground hornbills are believed to reach maturity at six to seven years, but very few breed at this age. Nests are almost always deep hollows in very old trees, though there exist reports ground hornbills have on occasions nested on rock faces. One to three eggs are laid at the beginning of the wet season but siblicide ensures that only one nestling is ever fledged. The eggs measure 73 millimetres (2.87 in) by 56 millimetres (2.20 in) and are pure white in colour but very rough in texture.
The period of parental dependence following a 40 to 45-day incubation period and an 85-day fledging period is between one and two years depending on climatic conditions before young are independent of parents and helpers, which is the longest of any bird. This means that ground hornbills can normally breed successfully only every third year. Triennial breeding is extremely rare in birds: probably the only other bird which breeds on a triennial basis is the ornate hawk-eagle of Neotropical rainforests.

Filmed in the Kruger National Park, South Africa

Filmed in 4K UHD resolution using the Sony AX100 4K video camera: https://go.magik.ly/ml/hory/

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