The Saturday Story | When hornbills found my mini jungle

During the first Covid-19 lockdown, I spent every free moment in my garden. One morning, I noticed that the papayas on my tree had ripened. Before I could pluck them the next day, someone had already helped themselves, leaving the fruits half-eaten. I decided to investigate.

The following morning, at 6.30 am, I took my position by the window, armed with my DSLR camera and a telephoto lens. “Oh my god!” I exclaimed while looking up from my camera. Three Indian grey hornbills were perched on the tree, competing for their share of the papayas. For 15 long years, I had dreamt of seeing them right around my home, rather than in some far-off forest. From that day on, I stopped taking the fruits. My feathered guests took the hint and have been visiting my home in Shivamogga ever since.

India is home to nine species of hornbills, many listed as vulnerable or near threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Karnataka has four of these striking birds — the Indian grey hornbill, Malabar grey hornbill, Malabar pied hornbill, and the great hornbill. They are called mangatte in Kannada.

Dr Rathnakar’s jungle is spread over a 50x70-foot plot in Shivamogga. It boasts 50 varieties of flowering and medicinal plants, and a dozen trees reaching 25 feet.

Hornbills are large birds with long, curved bills. Many species have a casque on top, a hollow, helmet-like structure that resembles a horn. The casque amplifies their calls, and helps with thermoregulation. What truly intrigued me about them was something I read in a Kannada daily in 2005: hornbills are monogamous and devoted partners. During the nesting period, the female seals herself inside a tree cavity and relies on the male to feed her and their chicks. For three months, he brings them fruits, insects, and other small prey. Equally fascinating is the important role they play in forests. They are primarily fruit-eaters, and they help spread seeds over long distances.

The same article mentioned that hornbills can be seen in Dandeli, a town deep in the Western Ghats of Uttara Kannada. Dandeli is part of the Kali Tiger Reserve, and both the reserve and adjoining areas are important hornbill habitats. That was enough. I set out for Dandeli, 200 km from Shivamogga. I was lucky to spot all four species found in Karnataka. I vividly remember their loud calls echoing through the forest. And the way they ate. They tossed food into the air, caught it in their beaks, and gulped it down in one smooth motion. That visit sparked my lifelong fascination with hornbills.

Keep it wild

How did my garden become a hornbill magnet? I can’t say for sure. I am a physician, not a wildlife expert. What I can say is that mine is not an average garden, with manicured lawns and pretty flower beds. It is a mini jungle, with 50 flowering and medicinal plants scattered around and a dozen trees reaching 25 feet. I don’t clear fallen leaves; lift one, and you will find earthworms crawling underneath. I don’t use pesticides. I let branches grow freely and trim them only when they bother my neighbours. In places, the canopy is so dense that sunlight barely reaches the ground. Perhaps my jungle offers birds a semblance of the forests they are losing to urbanisation. In this 50x70-foot pocket of wilderness, I have documented 38 bird species since the pandemic.

I wasn’t always pursuing trees or birds. Being a doctor, my only obsession used to be human anatomy. It was only after I settled into my career, and as Covid-19 slowed the world down, that I began noticing the other forms of life around me.

Although I live in an independent house, there wasn’t much space for gardening. So I turned to my relative, a fellow doctor, whose plot next to mine had been lying empty. He lives in the UK. I asked if I could use the land to create an urban jungle. Not only did he let me use it for free, but he also assured me it would probably be the last piece of land he would ever sell.

My family and I started small, with a kitchen garden of vegetables. But as the soil lost fertility, we moved on to growing trees. First came banana and drumstick saplings. Then followed ornamental creepers like blue trumpet vine to attract insects like honeybees. Trees like sandal, Turkey berry, Singapore cherry, and star gooseberry sprang from gifts dropped by birds! The Singapore cherry serves as a sanctuary for bulbuls, koels, barbets, and grey hornbills by day, and a night-time haunt for fruit bats. My wife added lotus ponds to attract kingfishers. Even though I knew about the Miyawaki method for growing dense mini-forests with native species, I let my jungle grow naturally, planting saplings here and there.

Little by little, our jungle grew fuller and more alive. Spiders spun webs, butterflies hovered for nectar, and honeybees built hives. Lizards, snails, and flies went about their busy lives, while drongos, bee-eaters, magpie robins, and Indian robins hunted for insects. Sparrows, squirrels, and bulbuls came for the grains, water, and fruits I put out. For a while, smaller birds like prinias and weavers even nested and bred here, but my cats and predators like shikras and greater coucals chased them away.

One of the rarest birds I have seen in my jungle is the Indian pitta, a colourful bird also called Navrang. It’s a migratory bird that comes down from northern India in winter. I spotted it hopping on the ground, looking for worms. It kept visiting for a week, until one day our cat caught it and rushed inside to show us. We managed to wrest the bird out of its mouth and release it. A jungle it is, and only the fittest will survive!

Fruit delight

Soon, I felt the need to document these visitors and their secret lives. I invested in a DSLR and later added CCTV cameras to capture moments while I was away at work. During the pandemic, I began leaving out water, rice, biscuit crumbs, and bread in clay plates for sparrows, squirrels, and bulbuls. When my jungle stopped yielding papaya, I began buying them to give my winged visitors a more varied menu. One day, I found a few of the plates smashed on the terrace floor. I decided to catch the culprit. I peeped through a slightly ajar door the next morning, and there they were again — the Indian grey hornbills! The heavy birds were landing straight on the plates, sending them crashing down. To ease their landing, I built wide granite slabs on the parapet and added bamboo perches above. That did the trick. What began with just a few visitors soon turned into a lively party. I once counted 21 of them in my little jungle.

Now I had to keep up with their appetite. From one or two plates, I moved to laying out 10 plates of fruit, some of which were emptied within minutes. It became a ritual. I would wake up by 5 am, chop the fruits, and serve their breakfast by 6. On days I ran late, they made sure I knew. They made loud, insistent calls.

Hornbills have a particular fondness for figs and berries. Since I don’t have those in my jungle, I started offering whatever fruits I found locally. So far, they have only taken to papaya, banana, and musk melon. Papaya is the clear favourite, and they are not big on sharing. A hornbill was leisurely chomping on papaya pieces one day when a squirrel dared to inch closer. Annoyed, the bird took off in a huff. I have even caught them nibbling on papaya leaves in my jungle. They also relish oleander fruits growing around the house, and it’s a delight to watch them skin each one skillfully. But watermelon, apples, and grapes were rejected outright.

One morning, when they were late for breakfast and the fruits ran out, they had to contend with rice meant for other birds. They struggled because it was sticky to eat. The next day, I rolled the rice into small balls, and they devoured them easily.

Should I be feeding the birds? What should I avoid? Could it take away their instinct to find food on their own? These questions crossed my mind many times at the start, so I decided not to feed them more than once a day. Some evenings, while I am on the treadmill at home, I see two or three hornbills perched on the trees outside, searching for food. I continue exercising. They fly away.

They forage on their own terms. One day, I watched a hornbill wait for a carpenter bee to crawl into a blue thunbergia flower, corner it, crush it between its beak, toss it up, and gulp it down with relish.

Exclusive show

In Shivamogga of the 1980s, you could spot a forest patch within a kilometre’s drive. Now, due to rapid development, you often have to drive up to 10 km to find one. So I didn’t know where these hornbills came from, but they seemed to fly in from all directions. At first, they landed on the trees outside my house, then moved into my jungle, and later approached the granite slabs.

I would later learn from experts that the Indian grey hornbill is commonly found in wooded patches within cities and can be seen on fruiting ficus trees such as peepal, banyan, and Mysore fig. They are not considered a species of “conservation concern”.

However, they need time to get comfortable with humans nearby. In my experience too, they wouldn’t come close if I was around. Even the slightest movement would scare them away. So I began by sitting silently in a corner, about 25 feet away, without a camera. Gradually, I started using my DSLR with a telephoto lens and a video camera, first handheld and later on a tripod. Over time, I moved closer, sometimes hiding behind a chair. So far, 15 feet is the closest they have tolerated me.

A month ago, two of my photographer friends came to my home for hornbill-watching. I set up a green net on the terrace for them to hide behind. To our surprise, the hornbills didn’t approach the perches. They sat on nearby trees, looked around, and eventually flew off without touching their breakfast. My friends tried again from a distance that the birds usually tolerate, but still no luck. Can they recognise strangers? And do they see me as a friend, a safe feeder? Call it bragging, or a reward I have earned, but even my family hasn’t seen hornbills up close. They only catch the action on the CCTV footage or through the videos I record.

One day, I captured a pair in courtship on camera. It was a filmy scene. They were perched on separate branches when their eyes met. The male hopped onto the same branch but sat awkwardly, turned away. Slowly, against a backdrop of flowers swaying on the vines and birdsong growing louder, they turned toward each other.

Hornbills, still an uncommon sight in my neighbourhood, sometimes draw the wrong kind of attention. One morning, as the birds were feeding, a youth from a low-income settlement nearby shot one down with a catapult. The bird fell, grimacing in pain. When he tried to take it away, my wife intervened, pleading until he returned it for Rs 100. The bird was frightened, and it bit both of us as we tried to help, but we managed to place it in a ventilated basket with some fruit. Later that evening, I released it in a nearby green patch. We informed forest officials, who later sensitised the local youth, explaining that harming wildlife is punishable under the law. I, too, made it known that our jungle is under CCTV watch.

These hornbills are currently in their nesting season. Where a dozen birds once gathered daily in my jungle, only a few visit now, mostly males. Their partners are possibly sealed inside tree cavities, tending to their young. I have reduced the fruit plates from 10 to three or four, and some remain untouched until the next day. My jungle is quieter now, held in a kind of pause. But I know this silence is not absence. It is life, hidden, waiting to return. And return they will. If there’s one thing the hornbills have taught me, it's that patience pays off.

(With inputs from Barkha Kumari)