Western Piping Hornbill Bycanistes fistulator
(aka Ceratogymna fistulator)
Piping Hornbill Heron, Ghana, May 2011 - click for larger image

Ghana
May 2011

The Western Piping Hornbill is distributed in tropical Africa south of the Sahara from Senegal to Nigeria. There is a distribution map at Birdlife International.

Piping Hornbill Heron, Ghana, May 2011 - click for larger image It is found in lowland and gallery forest where it feeds on fruit and a few insects usually in the canopy.

It has been split from Eastern Piping Hornbill by the HBW and Birdlife International Checklist on the basis of its dusky, grooved bill with a smallish casque and its black wings with broad white tips to the secondaries and the outer tail feathers broadly tipped white. Eastern Piping Hornbill B. sharpii looks quite different with a paler bill with a larger casque and white on the inner primaries and all secondaries and with the outer tail feathers all white.

Piping Hornbill Heron, Ghana, May 2011 - click for larger image One of the vocalisations is a harsh, nasal laughing while another is a shrill piping.

Previous Page Back to Index Next Page

If you do not see a menu on the left, you may have arrived at this page from another site. Please click Home to get to my main page.
Fatbirder's Top 1000 Birding Websites

Valid HTML 4.0 Transitional