Austen’s Brown Hornbill – Joys of Birding

The Austen’s Brown Hornbill or Anorrhinus austeni is a hornbill found in forests from northeastern India and south to Vietnam and northern Thailand. Sometimes included as a subspecies of Tickell’s Brown Hornbill, both have distinct physical characteristics. It was exciting to know that this Hornbill was nesting at Khao Yai National Park just shortly I arrived from one month of wildlife photography in the Philippines.

Gathering information about the location and what to prepare a do, Arpha and I went to Khao Yai National Park for a two-day trip. The rain was pouring non-stop and it was very inconvenient that we decided not to pitch a tent, but sleep at the back of he truck. We entered the national park late in the morning and we headed straight to the location to study the location and plan for everything before taking shots. We were urged by friends to already start taking photos but I said that we shall do it the next day and not to hurry with it. We were warned though not to come too early and leave late, bears and elephants have come several times when some people were still around taking photographs.

We woke up before first light, kept our sleeping stuff and and went straight to the location with everything we needed in our camera backpacks and all the gear needed to take the shots, we did not forget the relentless blood-sucking leeches, we prepared for them.

As we were setting up our hides, the pair came to feed, we had to hurry so we could already start taking photos, not a big concern though, we had the whole day. The Hornbills showed up according to the observed schedule, sometimes a little longer or earlier; from 10:00 am the Hornbills returned with longer intervals and in the afternoon it just rained and rained and rained. Out of about seven hides three remained and then there were just two, until 3:00 pm we stayed and we were rewarded with fantastic shot after the rained stopped. They came back and stayed longer, the light was perfect, everything was ours.

Khao Yai National Park, Thailand
May 13, 2018
Nikon D500 + Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6E ED VR
Fotopro TS-85C | Fotopro WH-30 | Carry Speed FS-Pro | Nitecore UNK1