UGANDA BIRDING SAFARI GUIDE
The Crowned Hornbill
Planning a Uganda Birding Safari...? Get ready to meet the Crown hornbill.
The information about Crown hornbills in this section of the Uganda Birding Safari guide will help get the most out of your Bird watching tour to Africa.
You will find
- Some facts about Crown Hornbills in Uganda
- How to Identify them and
- Where to find these Uganda birds
Facts about the crown hornbill (Tockus alboterminatus)
This woodland hornbill is a slender dark hornbill with a red bill and long black tail with white corners.
The crowned hornbills are of two races the eastern and paler-backed suahelicus and the western black-backed geloensis.
Identifying The Crown hornbill
Despite its name crown hornbill it really does not have an obvious crown!
It has white streaks behind the eyes which create a dark capped effect that looks like a “crown”.
The adult male is slightly larger than the female bird with a heavier casque.
The immature bird (A bird that has molted its juvenile plumage but has not attained its full adult plumage) is similar to the adult female but duller with a dull yellowish-bill.
The crown hornbills have floppy undulating flight and they show the obvious white tips to the outer tail.
Where to find them
You can find them in Entebbe Botanical Garden and in forests like Mabira and Kibale though not as common as the African Pied Hornbill.
In their habitats you can find them either in pairs or family groups.
They are more musical than the African pied no wonder they call them the noisy hornbill!
With a very sharp high pitched kip-kip-kip... and a long piercing refrain that rises and falls followed by kwi-kwi-kwi-kwi-kwi...!
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