Since I was a little girl, I've always had an affinity for animals and nature as a whole. Naturally, Bario was an amazing place for me. Throughout the duration of the project, I got to see a variety of animals running around the kampung grounds, definitely a different sight for this urbanite. Apart from your regular kampung animals comprising of chickens, dogs, cats, pigs and ducks running around (pigs were contained in a pig pen, no running around), there was Turu - your friendly neighbourhood hornbill.
Turu enjoying mangosteens. Photo by: Project WHEE!
From what we've gathered, Turu fell out of her nest when she was a hatchling. One of the residents of Bario brought her home and raised her. Later, the Sarawakian Forestry Department tried to release her somewhere in the 'wild', but she came back to Bario anyway. Today she flies around Bario as a the free bird that she has always been.
It's quite impossible to miss Turu if you've visited Bario before.Turu has character. I mean, like how dog owners would swear they'd understand every kind of bark, wag or twitch of their dog meant something different, Turu was the same. Throughout my stay, I got to know her and her 'gaya' (style) as time went along.
You see, in the city, you don't always get to interact with birds simply because you find mostly crows which are sadly regarded as flying rats due to their diet and where they 'hangout' at. Then there's the notorious pigeons known for dropping flying acidic liquid bombs over your freshly washed cars. We also get the occasional swiftlets which are, as their names indicate, quite swift and flies away.
However, in Bario, we were greeted by a HORNBILL every morning! How cool is that? Tepu Sina Rang's kitchen happens to be Turu's favourite go-to place for some instant food. I think that somehow she knows that tepu's kitchen is always fully loaded with delicious food to suit her hornbill-y taste. She joins us for breakfast every morning at the kitchen window of our longhouse. There, either of us would take turns to feed her and she's a very socialised bird.
Turu perched on the kitchen window with a morsel of rice.
I got her to perch herself on my arm, and she 'affectionately' wrangled my hand with her beak. Wasn't all that painful. Contrary to my facial expression here, I was extremely excited! She probably sensed it.
Jessica and I feeding Turu Nuba' Laya.
She definitely has a specific taste and boy does she have an attitude. Turu loves nuba' layak and fried tapioca but refuses to eat fried bananas. If she doesn't approve of what you feed her, she'd sweep it off the ledge of the window for the ducks and chickens to fight for down below. She'd then glare at you, sort of does a head wriggle and spread her wings in disapproval. If she still disagrees on what you feed her, she'll fly off to the banana trees across the road.
None of your food interests me, I'm flying off now.
She was also sort of our 'guardian bird' while we were there. While we ventured to town, she would follow us too. Although Turu didn't seem like the 'protector' kind of bird, neither was she very territorial, I felt very comforted to know that she was there, following us around. Some afternoons, she would perch on the kitchen window and watched while we sat for a chat or had tea. On days we were having our community work, she could be seen sitting on the telephone wire watching us as we furiously hacked at the grass with our parangs. As the days went along, I found myself talking to Turu and creating a persona for her, just like what I'd do with my dog at home. Hmm.
A picture of Turu while we walked to Saturday's Tamu Riah. She was probably saying: "I'll just wait here.. for you humans. Slow on your two feet."
You humans, finally made it.
L-R: Keller, Divya, Xara and Felice at Tamu Riah.
Vrooom
When I got home, there was a burning question about Turu that no one I met in Bario could answer:
What type of hornbill is Turu?
We all knew that she was a hornbill, but what kind? After about an hour of Googling and pouring through pages and pages of information about hornbills, I found out that Turu is a Wreathed Hornbill.
Wreathed hornbills is a species of hornbills which are found in forests around the Southeast Asian tropical regions. In the wild, these hornbills primarily eat fruit while sometimes eating some insects, crustaceans and small reptiles of amphibians. Male wreathed hornbills can be differentiated by their size and color of their pouch. Males have a bright yellow pouch whereas, the females have a bluish-greenish pouch.
According an article from theguardian.com:
"Hornbills are monogamous, and are known for their peculiar nesting behaviour where the nesting female is sealed inside a natural cavity either in a tree or occasionally in a rocky cliff. Before initiating incubation, female hornbills begin to close the entrance to the nest cavity with mud, droppings and fruit pulp. By the time the female is ready to lay her eggs, she enters the nest cavity and seals it off within a few hours until there is just a narrow slit through which her mate feeds her and the chicks for as long as eight months. Whilst some people think this nest-sealing behaviour is intended to protect the female and chicks from predators, most authorities think that nest-hunting rival hornbills are more of a threat and this behaviour evolved to protect the occupied nest cavity itself from being lost to invading conspecifics."
More info on wreathed hornbills here:
http://beautyofbirds.com/wreathedhornbills.html
http://www.theguardian.com/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2011/sep/10/2
http://www.oaklandzoo.org/Malayan_Wreathed%20Hornbill.php
http://www.arkive.org/wreathed-hornbill/aceros-undulatus/
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