Name: Eastern Yellow-Billed Hornbill also known as Yellow-Billed Hornbill
Scientific Name: Tockus flavirostris
African Names: Buurtuu (Hausa), Ndege (Kiswahili), Mbizi(Kiswahili), Kwembe (Kiswahili), Kholwane (Zulu)
Length: 18 inches to 24 inches
Average Adult Weight: 6 to 10 ounces
Life Span: The Eastern Yellow-billed Hornbill can live up to twenty or more years.
Description: The Eastern Yellow-billed Hornbill is distinguished by it’s bright yellow bill and lack of large casque protecting its bill.
Habitat: This hornbill prefers dry and semi-arid areas like forests, savannahs, and shrublands. They stay away from coastal areas as well as the wetter highlands.
Countries found in: The Eastern Yellow-Billed Hornbill is found in Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Babies: The female hornbill lays three to four eggs inside a sealed cavity in a tree. The eggs are incubated for roughly twenty-five days. The newly hatched chicks are mature in about forty-five days.
Food: The Eastern Yellow-billed Hornbill forage for seeds, small insects, spiders and scorpions on the ground.
Habits: Like the Von der Decken’s Hornbill, this hornbill seals the female within a tree hollow during incubation and chick rearing.
Conservation Status: Least Concern
Predators: Crowned eagles, leopards, and chimpanzees.
Interesting Facts: The Eastern Yellow-billed Hornbill was formerly named Northern Yellow-billed Hornbill.
The Eastern Yellow-billed Hornbill has a symbiotic relationship with the Dwarf Mongoose. The mongoose, when foraging, disturbs insect the hornbill eats. The hornbill will warn the mongoose of approaching danger.