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Piping Hornbill | Bycanistes fistulator
Fluitneushoornvogel | Cálao Silbador
The Piping Hornbill is the smallest Bycanistes and an inhabitant of the West and Central African rainforest, reaching the region only in north-western Angola. It is black and white with a pale bill and a low, inconspicuous casque.
Voice
A plaintive, piping pee-pee-pee-pee and nasal wailing calls, often in chorus and also in flight. The wingbeats make an audible whooshing sound, though less heavy than in the larger relatives.
Recording: Albert Vrielink — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
About 48 cm. Head, neck, breast, back and wings are black with a greenish gloss; belly, rump and undertail coverts white. The secondaries have broad white tips that form a white trailing edge in flight, and the outer tail feathers are largely white. The bill is pale yellow to cream with a dark base and a small, low casque, smaller still in the female. The bare skin around the eye is dark. Juveniles resemble the female, with a small bill.
Confusion species
Black-and-White-Casqued Hornbill (Bycanistes subcylindricus) is much larger, with a high black-and-cream casque and a large white wing panel. Trumpeter Hornbill (Bycanistes bucinator) is larger, with a grey casque and pink skin around the eye. Black-Casqued Hornbill (Ceratogymna atrata) is much larger and has wholly black wings. Congo Pied Hornbill (Lophoceros fasciatus) is smaller, with a yellow bill tipped red and a black tail with white tips.
Habitat
Lowland rainforest, gallery forest and secondary forest, also forest edge and old plantations with fruiting trees. It feeds mainly on fruit, including figs and oil-palm fruit, supplemented with insects. It nests in tree cavities, the female sealing herself in.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
Within the region only in north-western Angola, including Cabinda and the forests of Uíge and Cuanza Norte. Beyond the region it ranges through the rainforest of West and Central Africa, from Senegal and Guinea to Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, DR Congo and western Uganda.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Look for it in the forests of Cabinda and the north-western Angolan escarpment. Flocks move noisily from tree to tree and are best found at fruiting figs or oil palms. In flight check the white trailing edge of the wing and the pale bill.
Conservation status
Not threatened and common over much of the West and Central African forest, including degraded forest. In Angola its habitat is limited and shrinking through logging and conversion to farmland; hunting also plays a part locally.
Scientific name
Bycanistes fistulator | (Cassin, 1850)
Cassin described the species in 1850 as Buceros Fistulator; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Bycanistes was introduced in 1860 by Cabanis & Heine. Bycanistes comes from the Greek bykanistēs, 'trumpeter' — for the loud, braying and trumpeting calls of these hornbills. fistulator is Latin for 'piper', from fistula, 'reed pipe' — for the piping, plaintive call. The specimen the first description was based on came from Senegal.