African Gray Hornbill

We encountered an African gray hornbill in Etosha NP in Namibia which I blogged about on July 2, 2018. 

There are two subspecies. The southern subspecies we saw in Namibia is Lophoceros nasutus epirhinus. It is found in southern Angola, central Namibia, northern South Africa, southern Uganda and southern Kenya to southern Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

This range map is from Wikipedia. The subspecies epirhinus distribution is in green and the other subspecies, L. n. nasutus range is in blue. 

An illustration of epirhinus from Birds of the World is above. 

We recently saw a number of the northern subspecies, nasutus, in northeastern Uganda in Kidepo Valley NP. Nasutus is found across central Africa, from west to east, and into the Middle East, including southwestern Saudi Arabia and western Yemen. Photos of nasutus from our recent trip to Uganda follow:

I believe this may be a juvenile from the bill shape, lack of color and lack of casque. 

Male and female.

This is an illustration of the female nasutus from Birds of the World and the male illustration is below. 

It has gray and brown plumage with the head, flight feathers and long tail a darker shade. It has a white line down each side of the crown and another down the back that is only visible in flight. The long curved bill has a small casque along the base of the upper mandible which is more prominent in males than females. Males have a dark upper mandible with a yellow mark or horizontal stripe. Females have tri-colord red-tipped mandibles. The bills of juveniles are blackish without the color and have no casque. 

While we were at the Savannah Lodge in Kidepo Valley NP there were several of them flying around. Their sound and flight is very distinctive. Birds of the World and Wikipedia varied on the color of the horizontal strip on the nasutus male. Birds of the World says it white and Wikipedia says it is yellow. The males we saw had yellow and they were clearly nasutus from the range map.