Malabar Pied Hornbill

The Malabar pied hornbill, or lesser pied hornbill, is a large hornbill about 65cm long and 1kg in weight. It is mainly black, with a white belly, throat patch, tail sides and trailing edge to the wings, and a yellow bill topped by a large, mainly black casque. Females have white skin around the eye, which males lack, and juveniles have no casque. It might be confused with the oriental pied hornbill (Wikipedia, general species account).

It is an omnivore, eating fruit, small mammals, birds, small reptiles and insects. It lives mainly in low-altitude moist evergreen and tall deciduous forest, especially near rivers, and also in plantations and more open forest, often near human settlements. It has no subspecies. SoIB 2023 treats it as endemic to the Indian subcontinent and resident in India with a moderate range, finds its trends uncertain, and rates it a Moderate conservation priority (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).