Narcondam Hornbill

The Narcondam hornbill is a small hornbill, about 66 cm long, with the smallest global range of any Asian hornbill, its whole population confined to about 7 km² of forest on the single Indian island of Narcondam in the Andaman Islands. The male has a rufous head and neck and a black body glossed green, while the female is all black. Both have a bluish-white throat patch and a white tail, and a bill with a few folds on the upper side near the base, pinkish towards the base (Wikipedia, general species account).

Adults give a ka-ka-ka call in flight and a ko … kokoko call at the nest, and the young in the nest give feeble chew calls. Hussain (1984) identified seven food-tree species from seeds in middens below nest trees, including Anamirta cocculus, Garuga pinnata and Terminalia catappa. The breeding period spans at least February to April. Cyclonic storms occasionally hit the island, but the 2004 tsunami did not affect the species. SoIB 2023 rates it a High conservation priority, with a Very Restricted range (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).