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You’d think that with a great name like “Trumpeter” this hornbill would make a sound like a taxi horn or the pearly gates soundtrack, but you would be wrong. This bird sounds like a crying baby and when they mass in the tree tops, it can sound like the hospital nursery nine months after a power outage.

That big honker on top of its bill that resembles an ill-fitting helmet is a hollow casque. The unique acoustics of the casque make their sound echo through the forest, producing a cacophony that seems wildly out of proportion to their size, which isn’t shabby at 24 inches tip to tail. The casque is also a handy tool like a bottle opener for stubborn fruit.

Their breeding behavior follows the bizarre hornbill tradition, where the female seals herself inside a tree cavity, walling up the entrance with mud and droppings until only a narrow slit remains. She sits, entombed and entirely dependent on the male for food, for the nearly two-month incubation period.

On safari, we saw these in southern Africa. They thrive in dense riverine forest living in boisterous groups and operate with restless energy, producing one of the unique sounds of Africa.

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Hunters across southern and eastern Africa have cursed this bird for centuries. It is, functionally, a living alarm system that has never once been asked to perform this service and probably can never be stopped.

This classic gray bird adorned with a fright-wig crest has an almost aristocratic appearance. But in the African savannah, this bird behaves like the neighborhood loud-mouth porch sitter who insults anything and everything that catches its attention.

The bird's name is derived from its call, which sounds precisely like a nasal, scolding “g’way.” Its reputation was sealed by alerting every living creature within earshot that something interesting is happening. Predator approaching? Go-away. Tourist with a camera? Go-away. Leopard attempting a carefully orchestrated ambush? Go-away.

It eats fruit, flowers, and leaves, rarely descending to the ground, preferring to remain elevated, both physically and, one suspects, in its own estimation.

So, Gray Go-Away Bird, please don’t go away. We need you to keep protecting the wildlife on this beautiful continent.

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If accessories make the outfit, the African Long-Toed Lapwing is dressed for success. His bright red legs and eyes stand out from his white face and black hoodie. But his feet are arguably his most interesting feature.

Forget dainty wading. Armed with comically elongated toes, this bird looks like it’s walking on water, strolling effortlessly across floating lily pads and swamp weeds. It shares this bizarre superpower with the African Jacana, often sparking an ongoing turf war. Refusing to share the floating real estate, the lapwing launches aggressive aerial dive-bombs at jacanas.

A lapwing nest is little more than a shallow mud scrape hidden among wetland plants, vulnerable to countless predators. Their downy chicks are running within hours of hatching, freezing motionless at the first sign of danger, while their parents create noisy distractions to lure predators away.

This lapwing is fiercely territorial. Any heron, duck, or even crocodile wandering too close to its nesting area may be greeted with loud, indignant alarm calls and repeated dive-bombing attacks.

Crocodiles were a common sight when we were drifting along African waterways. Most wildlife keeps a cool distance. This fancy shorebird is up for the fight.

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Whenever I encountered bee-eaters in Africa, I envisioned an avian version of 007 - James Bond. Dressed in the finest attire, these small rainbow colored aerial assassins live a risky and dangerous life, ridding our world of venomous stinging insects.

Driven by the sight of a buzzing winged villain, the bee-eaters dive from their placid perch with aerial precision, that would easily out-maneuver Bond’s jetpack, to snatch the insect mid-air.

Back on the branch, a gruesome ritual unfolds: the bird repeatedly bashes the twitching, venomous victim against the wood to break its neck, then furiously rubs the insect’s abdomen back and forth to squeeze out the toxic venom before swallowing the prize whole. Mission Accomplished! It’s a good fight, but let’s face it, the pollinator didn’t stand a chance.

To top off their MI5-style efficiency, bee-eaters boldly hitch cross-country rides on the backs of zebras or ostriches, treating the mega-fauna as moving tanks that flush out hidden targets. They are known to chase roaring brushfires to snap up fleeing, terrified insects escaping the flames.

Africa hosts over 20 bee-eater species, more than any other place on earth. They are true heroes, living the fast life of risk and reward, always looking good, and ridding the planet of pesky scoundrels.

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The African Goliath Heron is huge. It is the largest heron on earth. Standing up to five feet tall and with a wingspan approaching eight feet, this bird doesn’t just hunt, it dominates its environment with quiet, calculated precision.

It lives its life with the quiet dignity of a butler and the power of a mafia chieftain. Found in the shallows of sub-Saharan Africa, this bird keeps its own counsel. Despite its size, the Goliath Heron is surprisingly elusive. It prefers solitude, keeping its distance from both humans and other birds. When it takes flight it’s a slow, powerful spectacle, huge wings beating steadily as it lifts off like something prehistoric.

On the hunt, remaining motionless for minutes at a time, it waits with astonishing patience before unleashing a lightning-fast strike with its spear-like bill. Large fish weighing over two pounds are on the menu. The impact is so powerful that the heron often impales or stuns its prey before tossing it into the air and swallowing it whole.

There’s something almost cinematic about the Goliath Heron, a silent giant stalking through sunlit marshes, perfectly adapted for patience and power. It’s a reminder that even in the modern world, nature still produces creatures that feel larger than life.

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I’ve always wondered about the prominent black moles that movie starlets sometimes highlight on their face to enhance their beauty or create an air of mystery. Personally, it doesn’t work for me so much, but it has been taken to the extreme by the male African Knob-Billed Duck.

This large, fleshy, jet-black protuberance erupting from the top of its bill looks like a biological accident or maybe a challenge for Dr. Pimple Popper. But males have turned this ungainly feature to their advantage. That absurd knob swells dramatically during breeding season, functioning as an honest biological advertisement, the bigger the knob, the higher the testosterone, the stronger the male.

Unquestionably it works for them. Males abandon their chill demeanor to become brazen bachelors, collecting harems of up to five females in quick succession.

Found across sub-Saharan Africa, this duck is one of the continent’s largest waterfowl, with males dwarfing females to a degree unusual even among ducks. Weighing up to 6.4 pounds and sporting a wingspan that can stretch to nearly five feet, they are more often found high in the treetops than paddling in the water and often nest in a tree hollow.

So next time you are worried about that prominent zit or bad haircut, remember the Knob-Billed Duck. Dial up the confidence and turn it to your advantage.

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If you ever want to know the power of religion, observe the African Sacred Ibis. Four thousand years ago the Ancient Egyptians worshipped it. They mummified millions of them as offerings to Thoth, god of wisdom, writing, and magic. Entire temple complexes kept thousands of Sacred Ibis in captivity.

With its gleaming black and white body, bald head, and long, downward-curving bill, the Sacred Ibis has an almost prehistoric appearance. Standing more than two feet tall, it probes mud and shallow water for fish, frogs, insects, crustaceans. This master scavenger also chugs carrion, raids nests for eggs and chicks, and has even learned to forage at garbage dumps.

These birds are highly social, often nesting in noisy colonies numbering in the hundreds. When a flock rises together, their broad black-and-white wings create a dramatic spectacle against the African sky.

It may have been sacred long ago, but oh, how things have changed. Today in parts of Europe wildlife managers are shooting them on sight. Escaped from zoos in past decades, feral populations exploded across France, Italy, and Spain, where the ibis, freed from African predators, raids seabird colonies with systematic efficiency, destroying eggs and chicks of protected species.

Definitely a mixed bag. As Jim Jones can attest, a little harmless belief can get out of hand.

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I'm ashamed to admit it but I had to go to Africa to learn the meaning of the word “pied.” As a child, I listened to the “Pied Piper” many times and never really thought about why the Piper was called Pied. Nobody threw a pie at him.

There are many African bird names that include the word “pied” (Kingfisher, Cuckoo, Avocet, etc.) and that’s how I learned the word simply means having patches of color, typically black and white. The Piper was Pied due to his multi-color patch couture.

Pied Crows are highly adaptive scavengers that range over most of sub-Saharan Africa and surrounding islands and are rarely found far from human habitation. They are consummate opportunists, thriving where humans have disrupted ecosystems with deforestation, urbanization, or agricultural expansion.

Like its cousins abroad, the Pied Crow is rabidly intelligent. They have been documented using cars as nutcrackers, dropping hard-shelled food onto busy roads or heavy stones from the sky to crack open indestructible ostrich eggs. They recognize individual human faces and hold grudges against people who have wronged them.

The African Pied Crow is a cunning, tuxedo-clad trickster that will cheerfully outsmart you, steal your lunch, and remember why they hate your face.

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You could be forgiven for writing off the African Collared Pratincole as kin to a tired human stereotype. For example. the pratincole has no pedigree. Technically a shorebird, it almost never goes near shores. Instead, it’s at home in open grasslands, dry riverbeds, and sunbaked mudflats across sub-Saharan Africa. It’s as if evolution couldn’t decide whether to build a shorebird, a swallow, or a falcon, so it combined all three.

Like some of its human throng, it has a crazy tattoo . . . on its face! Ornithologists have pity and call it a collar, but be honest. It looks like the poor bird forgot to finish his lunch.

We could also call it out for its low class housing. Pratincoles nest in the open with zero cover, relying entirely on camouflage and nerve. When a predator approaches, parents stare down the invader, even a truck or tractor, until it changes direction.

If necessary, the birds perform elaborate broken-wing displays, faking injury to lure threats away from eggs that are sitting, completely exposed on bare earth. If the chicks have hatched, the parents will signal their chicks to run, crouch, and remain completely still, perfectly camouflaged on the ground.

On the contrary, the Collared Pratincole, like many stereotyped humans, is a class act, a survivalist that refuses to be easily categorized, living a austere life, running on pure audacity.

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We are looking out of our cabin across a nearly dry watering hole in Zimbabwe. It is the end of the dry season, prime time for wildlife viewing as the water is minimal and needed by all species. At dawn, booming voices echo across the water, sounding like distant drums.

Across the receding waters, we see an encampment of Southern Ground-Hornbills, noisy squatters staking out their territory. Standing almost 3 feet tall and weighing as much as 12 pounds, these birds favor solid ground. They hunt in groups, striking a snake, lizard, tortoise, or small mammal with their impressive beak and swallowing it whole.

These glorious birds can live up to 70 years, but this longevity has its price. They are endangered because of their slow reproductive calendar. They lay only two eggs every three years and raise only the firstborn. Adolescent offspring spend years as unpaid childcare labor, helping raise chicks and learning critical skills necessary for future reproduction.

These giant hunters stalk the African savanna with the confidence of an animal that knows very few things dare challenge it.

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Never in need of company, white-fronted bee-eaters live in sprawling, multi-generational communes, enormous sandbank colonies of up to 450 individuals. Found across sub-Saharan Africa, these jewel-bright birds, painted in scarlet, cobalt, and emerald operate in domineering family units.

Young birds are conscripted by their own parents into babysitting. Researchers have found that parent birds actively harass their adult offspring to abandon their own nests and help raise younger siblings. The manipulation is ruthless and deliberate.

The cult story continues . . . Female white-fronted bee-eaters leaving their nesting burrows must flee from unmated males who may force them to the ground and rape them. Males prefer females who are fertile in hopes that they will lay the eggs of the rapist rather than their mate. It’s all very Temptation Island.

These bee-eaters follow the typical bee-eater smash and swallow technique to disarm their prey. To make hunting even easier, they use wildlife like giraffes or zebras as mobile perches. As the large mammals stomp through the grass, they flush out hidden insects, serving them up to the waiting, bee-eaters. Mom and Dad would be proud.

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Jesus knew about survival when he said “The meek shall inherit the earth.” The test of survival is not written in fancy feathers, standout colors, or bizarre behaviors. Consider, if you will, the yellow-bellied greenbul.

It is a smallish bird with a lovely yellow breast that hides in the dense thickets of sub-Saharan Africa, not unlike the great crested flycatcher that inhabits the eastern US and parts of Canada. Both birds have mastered the art of blending into their environment. You probably won’t notice them unless you see one in action.

The greenbul’s secret to survival is its diet. Insects are a favorite, but this bird happily raids berries, fruit, nectar, flowers, and whatever else the landscape offers, adapting to gardens, woodland edges, riversides with ease. It has even been seen plucking ticks from the hides of grateful wild game.

The yellow-bellied greenbul has a playful, curious side, stopping by to observe humans like we watch birds. Whether it’s the super El Niño, or some other global disruption, birds like the flexible and curious yellow-bellied greenbul will always survive.

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The African Wire-tailed Swallow looks as though it was designed by an artist with sleek blue cape above gleaming white underparts, and a rich chestnut cap. But up close, the real showstopper is its tail. Two impossibly thin outer tail feathers trail behind like delicate wires streaming through the air, giving the bird an elegance that seems almost unreal.

This unique tail is multi-purpose. These birds are faster and more agile than their sensibly-tailed cousins. Those wire-thin streamers somehow enhance maneuverability, allowing these birds to execute hairpin turns and barrel rolls while hunting insects at breakneck speeds.

Their mating game is also driven by these wires. Researchers found that females preferentially select males with the longest, most immaculate wires. In this case, size does matter.

These swallows often build mud nests beneath bridges, culverts, or rocky overhangs, raising families surprisingly close to people. They are long-term tenants who can occupy the same mud cup nest for over a decade.

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In what bird family do you place a brown, medium sized bird that looks like it’s assembled from spare parts. You don’t. This strange bird stands alone in its own scientific family. With its long legs, hunched posture, backward-pointing shaggy crest, and oversized hammer-shaped head, it resembles something halfway between a heron and a crow. The name “hamerkop” literally means “hammer head” in Afrikaans.

The hamerkop is truly a bird of legend. It is a powerfully bad omen across many sub-Saharan cultures. It is widely feared as a bringer of death, misfortune, and illness. Paradoxically, these negative superstitions serve to protect the species, as it is considered extremely bad luck to harm or kill the bird.

Paired hamerkops, avid architects, build massive, over-engineered nests constructed from mud and grass and thousands of sticks. The nests are large and sturdy enough to hold a human. These fortress-nests have multiple chambers, a side entrance, and roofs. Some years they build multiple nests. Nobody knows why.

For fun they engage in manic, ecstatic dancing, running in circles with wings flapping, and performing “false mounting” (jumping on each other’s backs) to celebrate pair-bonding. The hamerkop is truly bizarre, fascinating, and formidable, worthy of its own horror novel.

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Hidden within the dense, tangled undergrowth of sub-Saharan Africa lives one of the continent’s most dramatic vocalists, the Tropical Boubou. While often shy and hard to spot, this glossy black-and-white bush shrike makes its presence known through an staggering display of vocal talent.

Boubous are obsessive mimics, copying everything from other birds to cell phones, car alarms, and crying babies with unnerving accuracy. Hear a frog croaking in a tree? That monkey chattering overhead? Probably a boubou. They are even more famous for their perfectly synchronized, far-carrying duets.

In a thrilling display of team-work, the male hurls out a hollow call, while the female instantly responds with a harsh rattle, so rapid they sound like a single, bizarre creature. It’s usually a mated pair singing with such tight coordination that they seem like a single, two-voiced creature. If a mate dies, the remaining boubou can perform both parts of the duet alone.

Different boubou populations across Africa have developed completely different “dialects,” regional song variations so distinct that birds from different areas literally can’t understand each other. It’s like discovering that mockingbirds in Pouhhkeepsie and Tallahassee speak different languages.

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You’ll rarely see this coocoo relative as it is usually hidden in the impenetrable papyrus swamps and wetlands of south-central Africa. This massive, roughly 19-inch assassin with piercing ruby-red eyes and a velvety black head is a ruthless predator. It prefers to creep through dense cover, moving with deliberate confidence.

They actively hunt frogs, small birds, reptiles, fish, and rodents. In a stunning display of ruthless foraging, they have been observed tearing open the nests of small weaver birds to consume the chicks inside.

We’re all familiar with the typical sexual dimorphism in birds where a diminutive female sits on the nest. Coucal females have broken through gender guardrails and are larger than males. They do all the territorial calling. Males build the nests, incubate the eggs, and raise the chicks while females defend territory and occasionally mate with multiple partners. You go girl!

Their feet are weird with two toes forward, two back, which gives them incredible climbing ability through dense reed beds where normal birds would struggle. They’re nearly invisible despite their size. These hefty birds can vanish into wetland vegetation like ghosts, their eerie calls the only evidence they’re watching you.

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