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Congo Pied Hornbill | Lophoceros fasciatus
Congolese bonte tok | Toco Blanquinegro del Congo
The Congo Pied Hornbill is a black-and-white hornbill of the Central African rainforest that reaches the region only in northern Angola. It lives in noisy groups in the canopy of forest edges, secondary forest and well-wooded farmland.
Voice
A long series of high plaintive whistles, pee-pee-pee-peeoo-peeoo, often by several birds at once, and a barking chatter. It is one of the most frequently heard sounds in Central African forest.
Recording: Matthew L. Brady — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
About 52 cm. Head, neck, breast, upperparts and wings are black with a slight gloss, the belly white. The tail is black with broad white tips to all but the central pair of feathers. The bill is pale creamy yellow with a dark reddish-brown base and tip and a low casque, smaller and with more dark in the female. The bare skin around the eye is blackish, the iris brown. Juveniles have a smaller, uniformly pale bill. Flight is undulating between the treetops.
Confusion species
Piping Hornbill (Bycanistes fistulator) is larger, with a dark casqued bill and much white in the wings in flight. Crowned Hornbill (Lophoceros alboterminatus) is dark brown with a red bill. Black-Casqued Hornbill (Ceratogymna atrata) is much larger, with a black bill and casque and a blue throat. The West African form semifasciatus, with more black on the bill, is sometimes treated as a separate species.
Habitat
The edges of lowland rainforest, gallery forest, secondary forest, clearings and farmland with scattered tall trees, even villages. It eats mainly fruit, as well as insects caught in the canopy or in flight. It nests in tree holes.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
In the region only in northern Angola: Cabinda, the north-western provinces such as Uíge and Cuanza Norte, and the north-east in the Lundas. Beyond, through the Central African rainforest belt from Nigeria and Cameroon to Uganda and the southern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In northern Angola best found in the Maiombe forest of Cabinda and in the forest remnants of Uíge. Groups give themselves away with their whistling chorus and are easy to see as they fly from tree to tree across clearings.
Conservation status
Not threatened and common in Central Africa; the species tolerates secondary forest and wooded farmland well. In Angola its range is small and the remaining forest is under pressure from logging and agriculture.
Scientific name
Lophoceros fasciatus | (Shaw, 1812)
Shaw described the species in 1812 as Buceros fasciatus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Lophoceros was introduced in 1833 by Hemprich & Ehrenberg. Lophoceros comes from the Greek lophos, 'crest', and keras, 'horn' — for the ridge-like casque on the bill. fasciatus is Latin for 'banded' — for the black-and-white pattern of the tail. The specimen the first description was based on came from Angola.