Further to the post on the Malabar Pied Hornbills (Anthracoceros coronatus) locking bills in India, we bring you two other accounts:
1. Dr Jonathan WK Cheah sent an image taken in Singapore of a female Rhinoceros Hornbill (Buceros rhinoceros) perching outside the nesting cavity locking bills with a female great hornbill (Buceros bicronis) that had just entered the cavity (left). Details of this aberrant courtship ritual between two females of different species have been described HERE.
2. Dr Geoffrey Davison’s encounter: “I was birdwatching along the Kinabatangan River in Sabah, Malaysia… We saw a pair of Rhinoceros Hornbills, the male and female perched on opposite sides of the bare crown of a dead tree. The male then flew to the female, they crossed and joined their half-open bills, and the male still in flight (he didn’t land when they crossed bills) continued on to another tree some distance away. The female just sat where she had been.”