Birds 18 - The Malabar Grey Hornbill Poem by Unnikrishnan Sivasankara Menon

A loud laugh, a hysterical cackle!
I got up with a start early morning,
opened my eyes. I was in
my friend's house in Wayanad

It was a Malabar Gray Hornbill
we had sighted a few days back
in plantations in the slopes below
resident of the dense forests too
of the hills of the Western Ghats.

Wondered when her egg
was hatched and she broke
the muddy seal of her nest
to come out of voluntary seclusion.

She has a long sharp beak
curved, is fruigivorous, but
unlike other hornbill species,
she has her casque missing.

She has grey brown wings,
black primary flight feathers,
grey back, heavy orange bills
and long white tipped blackish tail.

As a large fruit-eating bird,
hornbill plays a vital role
in dispersing the seeds of
about eighty rainforest trees.

White cedar trees suffered
ninty percent decline
in seed dispersal, when
hornbill population declined.

If there are no hornbills
there will be no cedars,
no many-other-trees,
and may be no man!

For, it is for them that it rains
still in the forests, in spite of man
their trees cutting down
and hunting them down!