The excitement of the hornbill that showed up in south Madras

My first post this year celebrates an unusual event for me.

23rd Jan 2021

A rather interesting start to the morning.  As I desultorily scrolled through the MNS WhatsApp messages, I stopped.  Lakshmi, very tentatively, asks, "Is grey hornbill a usual visitor near Adyar broken bridge?"  Huh, whaaaat?  And then two pictures of pictures in their cameras!

The group was buzzing with amazement and excitement.  Rajaram called the bird Jonathon Livingston Hornbill, out exploring southern climes.  Vikas mentioned that it had not been seen south of Mamanduru maybe.

31st Jan 2021

The feathered celebrity made it to the papers, and of course e-bird.  TS has been such a sanctuary for all sorts of non-human creatures, in the heart of my city, guarded zealously by its members.  

Patagonia Picnic basket?  From Wiki -

The Patagonia picnic table effect (also known as the Patagonia rest area effect or Patagonia rest stop effect) is a phenomenon associated with birding in which an influx of birdwatchers following the discovery of a rare bird at a location results in the discovery of further rare birds at that location, and so on, with the end result being that the locality becomes well known for rare birds, even though in itself it may be little or no better than other similar localities.[1]

The name arises from the Patagonia Rest Stop in Arizona, where the phenomenon was first noted.[2] As of June, 2020, more than 220 species have been recorded there

24th Feb 2021

I am terrace-walking and listening to music, watching the sunbirds and the kingfisher, when there is a raucous frenzy among the crows, and a flash of grey into the Spathodea tree across the street.  Shikra, I think and watch it idly as I continue walking.  (A shikra had been calling loudly and insistently the fortnight before), and as I move, I suddenly stop - that beak looks way too big, and wait, that tail is too long.  

Hello, what - it is the hornbill!  I could not believe my myopic eyes were seeing right.  Call to my husband goes unanswered.  Ring Sheila - she answers, I hiss, come up immediately - bring camera and binocs - the hornbill is here!  I must say that she was up pronto (nothing else would stir us up into such quick action), and I point (without pointing, can't have the bird flying off), and she says yes.  I grab her binoculars, and her hands shake as she tries to put her camera on and focus on it, in the foliage.  The crows continue to caw blue murder all around.  I get a good look through the binoculars.

Almost immediately, it decided it had enough of the bullying crows, and took off with one call, flying east.

The Indian Grey hornbill seen on new beach road, seconds before it took off.  Photo by Sheila

What an unexpected "darshan", and I was so happy I could share the moment with atleast one more person.  I felt a bit sad as well, as to the hostility it had to face from the neighbourhood crows, let alone the lack of its favourite fruit trees.  I wished and hoped it had flown back to the TS.

Tried to upload the sighting on e-bird, but hmmm the bird did not exist or what?  Ah, tripped by Grey vs Gray.  

Soon after, it was not TS, but IIT where it was heard.  Suzy reported hearing calls, but no sightings.  And then on the 27th, Mahathi caught a glimpse.  

Indian Gray Hornbill (Ocyceros birostris) (1)

- Reported Feb 27, 2021 13:01 by Mahathi Narayanaswamy
- Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu
- Map: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=p&z=13&q=12.9934334,80.2380896&ll=12.9934334,80.2380896
- Checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S82408913
- Comments: "Flew into the banyan in front of stadium and disturbed 9 of the 14 koels on the tree. As a result it got startled and it flew out. I tried to look for it again, especially since a lot of banyan trees in the area are fruiting but looking at birds on the banyan tree for so long non stop caused my neck to get strained so will go home check the trees around my house take a break and come back once the sun subsides a little to look for the bird to get a record shot.
This individual has been seen in ts and thiruvanmiyur recently and we have been hearing it on campus around the stadium area for the past three days so it may be doing rounds there owing to the several fruiting banyans in the area.
As for description- Size was koel+, flight was in a sense as though it soars before it landed, colour of feathers is uniform grey, tail and wing feathers have white markings which are viable in flight, for the few seconds that I got to see it the notch like thing on the hornbills beak was also visible(dont know what its called)."

I wish you safe passage and haven, and may you make a home and family in our city, or wherever your journey takes you.  Thanks for the visit.