Hornbills are distinctive with a long, curved bill which is brightly coloured with yellow and red being the most common colours. They use this unique bill to break open fruits but being omnivorous they also feed on small animals. Like some other birds in Africa, it is monogamous and breeding and nesting takes place in natural cavities such as trees and sometimes cliffs or in very small caves. They are not generally considered threatened in Africa and are found in abundance throughout sub-Saharan Africa, though evidence shows that they used to inhabit some of the Sahara in the past. Their favourite habitats include open woodlands and savanna but less commonly in arid environments. Hornbills do not generally flock and will instead fly with it’s life-mate, but it is territorial with a ‘fixed-territory’ that is related to it’ diet, which includes fruit sources that can often be distributed only in a patchy way which requires them to fly long distances in order to find ripe fruit to consume.
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