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A northern red billed hornbill was recently spotted in Singapore.
Image from Wu Johnathan/Facebook.
Zazu lookalike
The northern red billed hornbill might look familiar to Lion King fans.
The film's character, Zazu, was created based on red billed hornbills.
There are five species of red billed hornbills and the northern red billed hornbills are one of them.
Zazu in the 2019 rendition of Lion King. Image by Michael Kutsche.
An African native, northern red billed hornbills are non-migratory birds.
This meant that the onscreen character is as close as it gets in terms of public encounters with this hornbill in the wild.
Bewilderingly, however, the non-native was sighted by netizen Lim Swee Leong Leonard on July 28 at East Coast Park.
Video from Lim Swee Leong Leonard/Facebook.
In his Facebook post, netizens were quick to draw the resemblance between Zazu and the bird.
Screenshot image from Facebook.
Others, however, were intrigued at how a non-native bird from Africa had wound up in Singapore.
Screenshot image from Facebook.
Juvenile non-native bird
Since then, the northern red billed hornbill has also been spotted by multiple avian enthusiasts, amongst which was one Wu Johnathan.
Speaking to Mothership, Wu said it was his first time coming across the feathery creature.
According to him, the bird was likely a juvenile and had a shorter bill of a pale orange colour.
The bird enthusiast happily observed the northern red billed hornbill feeding on caterpillars on the ground and on the trees.
Hornbills are omnivores so besides small insects, they also feed on rodents and wild fruits and seeds.
Image from Wu Johnathan/Facebook.
Image from Richard Lee/Facebook.
This same incident of a cat attacking the bird was reported by another nature enthusiast who had chanced upon the bird.
Fortunately, it survived from this ordeal.
Speculations over its origin
Wu said that he never dreamt of seeing the African bird in the wild here.
A peculiar sight, he suggested that the bird is likely a "released bird".
There were no prior records of the northern red billed hornbill on the Singapore Birds Project, where local birders documents all bird species sighted in Singapore, including migrant birds.
In addition, the bird does not have a tag on either feet; this means that the bird is unlikely to be an escapee from Jurong Bird Park.
Image from Regi Varghese/Facebook.
Lim remarked that the bird was "very tame", and said the feathered creature seemed comfortable with humans.
He was responding to a comment that suggested the red billed hornbill had escaped from its owners.
Some birders said that this hornbill was spotted about five months ago.
A birder suspected that it could have flown to Singapore from Malaysia too.
Northern red billed hornbill
The northern red billed hornbill, or Tockus erythrorhynchus, are classified as "Least Concern" on the The International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species.
Birds from the species can be found widely distributed across Africa.
Male and female birds look similar, although males have slightly larger bills.
Top image from Max Cheo and Wu Johnathan