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I got these photos of the Luzon Tarictic Hornbill (Penelopides manillae) at the Quezon National Park, Philippines, just by the roadside trees. It ate a berry and it was fun to see it do the “flip and catch” routine. It held the berry in its beak, proceeded to shake it a bit, and tossed it upwards, catching it as it fell into its “mouth”. It swallowed the berry whole without biting it. It hopped and flew away after a few seconds.

I was later told by a fellow biologist that this feeding behavior is known as “ballistic feeding”, or more precisely, “ballistic transport feeding”. Webster defines ballistics as “the flight characteristics of a projectile” – exactly what happened here where the berry was tossed and caught by the bird. Hornbills and toucans are known to feed this way.

Two recent papers (Baussart , et al, 2009 and Baussart and Bels, 2011) show some interesting results of filming some hornbills and toucans in high speed while they were feeding. Firstly, the tongue is not involved at all in tasting the food, nor in expanding the “mouth area” (“buccal cavity”), but in throat expansion (in toucans). Secondly, different species have different “catch points” in the berry’s path and different “catch stances”. See the links at the end of the page for more information.

For photographers, I think these types of behavior are much harder to come by, much less shoot with the right timing. Luck was part of it, but so was some preparation of shot settings before one even sees the bird. Practice is key. What a nice photographic catch, if I may say so myself! :)

Tarictic Hornbill (Ballistic Transport Feeding)
Tarictic Hornbill (Ballistic Transport Feeding)

Canon EOS 7D, 100-400L IS lens hand-held
ExposureTime – 1/200 seconds
FNumber – 5.60
ExposureProgram – Manual control
ISOSpeedRatings – 1250
DateTimeOriginal – 2011:03:03
SubjectDistance – 12.60 m
FocalLength – 400 mm

References:

Baussart, S. and V. Bels. 2011. “Tropical hornbills (Aceros cassidix, Aceros undulatus, and Buceros hydrocorax) use ballistic transport to feed with their large beaks.” J Exp Zool A Ecol Genet Physiol. 2011 Feb 1;315A(2):72-83. doi: 10.1002/jez.590.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20140955

Baussart S, Korsoun L, Libourel PA, Bels V. 2009. “Ballistic food transport in toucans”. J Exp Zool A Ecol Genet Physiol. 2009 Aug 1;311(7):465-74.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19415715

The Luzon Tarictic Hornbill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luzon_Tarictic_Hornbill

Hornbill “flip and catch”
http://birdphotoph.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=photo&action=display&thread=7286