Updates from the Field No. 6 December 2013–June 2014 Malaysian Nature Society, JKR 641 Jalan Kelantan, Bukit Persekutuan, 50480 Kuala Lumpur From the Editor’s Desk December is always a time of rains in Belum-Temengor which makes fieldwork rather unpredictable (and very . short mostly) but it also provides the MNS team with a brief respite before we enter an important period in a hornbill’s life come January – their breeding season. Despite generally being a wet month, some hornbills have already started to scout around for new nest holes or revisit previous ones. An early hornbill gets the hole perhaps? The success of 2013 breeding season provided us with much encouragement and hope but results in the first three months of 2014 proved slow. Thankfully, from April onwards, the situation improved and we successfully located more in Royal Belum and Temengor. The 2014 breeding season was also exciting as we field tested the HD improvised recording device – now named HB-IRD – which gave us some amazing insights into the secretive world of the nesting Bushy-crested and Black Hornbills. There was another reason to rejoice in January. While surveying hornbills in Temengor, we encounter a little known and rarely seen social behaviour of the Helmeted Hornbills – casque-butting – on two occasions. True to its description by other witnesses in Thailand and/or Indonesia, the collision between the casques (or helmets if you like) of two individuals resulted in a very loud and memorable “CLACK” – the sound of the impact has been described “like billiard balls knocking into each other”. Fortunately, we managed to photograph the behaviour as it happened but just barely; as light was fading in the evening. From this issue onwards, we made some further changes to the contents of this Update. Although it serves to provide readers about the progress of MNS hornbill work in Belum-Temengor, we also now welcome short articles about your hornbill encounters in other parts of Malaysia. Anuar McAfee shares with us his Oriental Pied Hornbill story from Kenyir. So, readers, do contact me if you have interesting write ups. The second new addition is a column to ‘capture’ hornbill sightings in the country. For the latter, most information are gleaned from the MNS Bird I-Witness database but we also welcome from other sources e.g. Facebook postings, direct submissions (to the Editors) etc including accompanying low resolution photo(s) (if any). Naturally, proper credit(s) will be accorded. We hope that over time we would have a reasonable database on hornbills which could help us understand their statuses in our country. Lastly, I would like to welcome and thank Ms Nina Cheung for coming onboard to assist the team in producing the Updates for 2014. She was previously the Editor for Suara Enggang (MNS-Bird Conservation Council’s bird bulletin) for many years. Her editorial experience will definitely help improve the Updates. How time flies! Instead of quarterly Updates in 2014, we have decided to produce two bumper Updates (January-June/July-December) to catch up. We hope you enjoy reading them. Yeap Chin Aik Cover Photo: A Male Wrinkled Hornbill. Yeap Chin Aik/MNS HCP Update No. 6 December 2013 - June 2014 2 Field Updates INTRODUCING THE HB-IRD Capturing the unseen Locating a hornbill nest in a landscape such as Belum-Temengor is an amazing challenge. Once located, monitoring them to gain insights into their breeding behaviour is another. Little is known about the breeding behaviour and cycles of all our 10 hornbill species (Wells 1999). Hence it is important to monitor the located hornbill nest(s) as frequent as possible to address the knowledge gaps. As daily or frequent monitoring is resource intensive i.e. manpower, Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) has been experimenting with technology as a possible way to monitor nest(s). Working with Mr. Herman Visser from Specialised Projects Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., we developed a prototype in 2013 by combining the current CCTV technology with conventional video recording equipment powered by motorcycle batteries. The prototype casing alone was heavy and weighed at least 8.5kg! It took at least four persons to carry the entire prototype to the target nest. We field tested the prototype on an active Wreathed Hornbill nest in mid-2013. Then we waited to see the results. It was a huge relief to finally see that the prototype was successful in capturing interesting breeding behaviour of this hornbill. The icing on the cake was that it also managed to capture the emergence of the female and chick as well just before the batteries went flat! With the successful trial of the prototype, MNS and Specialised Projects began working on the second version taking into account some of the shortcomings. By late May 2014, we were ready for another round of field tests. We named the version 2.0 as the HORNBILL BREEDING-IMPROVISED RECORDING DEVICE or the HB-IRD. This unit is smaller, uses less number of batteries but is now in high definition. We returned to the same nest and discovered that a family of Bushy-crested Hornbills have taken over as the new tenants. Nevertheless, we proceeded as planned. How did the field tests go? We’ll find out in the next Update. Deployment of the CCTV HD video recording unit in the field. It was trialed on two species (Black and Bushy- crested Hornbills) for several days respectively. TheCHICK field trials were2 successful whereby amazing feeding footages were captured, giving us more insights into their behaviour and nesting needs in this landscape. HCP Update No. 6 December 2013 - June 2014 3 Field Updates Photo: HB-IRD/MNS Bushy-crested Hornbill feeding his imprisoned female and/or chick. Photo: HB-IRD/MNS CHICK 2 Male Black Hornbill brought back a scorpion to the nest. HCP Update No. 6 December 2013 - June 2014 4 Field Updates SEARCH CONTINUES FOR NESTS Spurred and encouraged by the 2013 season’s success, the MNS team continued to tap on our Orang Asli network and invest in our own nest search efforts. The first three months (January-March) proved challenging with only three new nests. However, the situation seemed to turn for the better as April rolled in. By the end of June, a total of 15 new nests of six species have been found as follows: Bushy-crested Hornbill (8) Rhinoceros Hornbill (4) Oriental Pied Hornbill (3) Black Hornbill (2) Great Hornbill (1) Wreathed Hornbill (1) While searching for new nests, we also continued to monitor some existing nests (discovered previous seasons) belonging to the: Oriental Pied Hornbill (4) Black Hornbill (1) Bushy-crested Hornbill (3) Rhinoceros Hornbill (2) Some of these hornbills completed their breeding process i.e. seal broken or chick(s) fledged in May or June. The male Oriental Pied Hornbill at its sealed nest hole in a merbau tree (Intsia palembanica). It is likely to be the same pair that used this tree hole to nest last year. (Tee Lian Huat / MNS) One of the males in the Bushy-crested Hornbill CHICKgroup The 2chick of the nesting Wreathed Hornbill returning to feed buah bayas to the female inside. In getting restless inside the cavity. The the 2012 breeding season, this nest was occupied by female can be seen behind the chick with its Wreathed Hornbills. It has since been taken over by blue facial skin. this group from 2013 till this year. HCP Update No. 6 December 2013 - June 2014 5 Field Updates HEAD BANGERS Casque-butting between Helmeted Hornbills captured on camera The Helmeted Hornbill is one of the largest Asian hornbills around with an average weigh of about 2-3 kilogram. It is found in Sundaic tropical rainforests of southern Myanmar and Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, Borneo and Sumatra (Indonesia). Social behaviour of hornbills are often difficult to observe in the wild hence not much is known. In early January 2014, a little-known and rarely seen social behaviour of Helmeted Hornbills was observed engaged in casque-butting in late evening at Temengor Forest Reserve. Two pairs of Helmeted Hornbills (Pairs A and B) were perched on exposed branches of a tree (Figure 1) located on a slope opposite each other. One male (Pair A) then took off from the perch and flew towards the other perched male (Pair B) and attempted to knock its casque with it (Figure 2,3 & 4) . However, the attempt was not successful. The female from Pair A followed soon after and attempted to casque butt with Pair B female (Figure 5-9). This attempt was successful and a loud ‘CLACK’ was heard. After these two attempts of casque-butting, the Helmeted Hornbill pairs remained in the area but no further attempts were made and light was fading. Pair A Pair B Figure 1 HCP Update No. 6 December 2013 - June 2014 6 Field Updates CHICK 1 Figure 2: Male of Pair A flew down to casque-butt with the male of Pair B MOM CHICK 2 Figure 3 HCP Update No. 6 December 2013 - June 2014 7 Field Updates CHICK 1 Figure 4 MOM CHICK 2 Figure 5: Female of Pair A followed to casque butt with Pair B female. HCP Update No. 6 December 2013 - June 2014 8 Field Updates CHICK 1 Figure 6 MOM CHICK 2 Figure 7 HCP Update No. 6 December 2013 - June 2014 9 Field Updates CHICK 1 Figure 8 MOM CHICK 2 Figure 9 HCP Update No. 6 December 2013 - June 2014 10 Field Updates According to Kinnaird et al. (2003), the casque-butting could be a form of agonistic behaviour of Helmeted Hornbills competing for similar, limited resources.