06 June 2011

Southern ground hornbills, South Luangwa

We saw these huge birds (roughly the size of a turkey) on several occasions in Zambia's South Luangwa National Park. Apparently, southern ground hornbills (Bucorvus leadbeateri) are rare outside protected areas, for obvious reasons.


[11 May 2007, Canon 20D, 300 mm f4 L IS, ISO 200, 1/500 at f8]

All content © 2011 Pete McGregor

3 comments:

Zhoen said...

I deeply suspect dinosaurs looked like this. All that bulgy colorful facial protuberance. Those tough legs, and black feathers.

pohanginapete said...

Zhoen, birds are considered by many to be direct descendants of some dinosaurs, and it's easy to believe this when, as you point out, one sees birds as striking as this.

Zhoen said...

Yup. Not really hard to imagine, is it?