I can finally confirm a kind of bird I've been seeing the last few years is not a rare species of vulture, but actually a great hornbill.
🫷 First, Some Kitty Overload 🐈⬛
The rainy season is starting to return to the Cardamom Mountains here in Cambodia, and with that has come a burst of life, from the insects all the way up to gibbons and birds, everything is coming back to life and the wildfires are slowly being snuffed out. Apparently ChairWoman Meow was too young to fully remember how intense the rainy season can be here.
Some mild rain today triggered some fears in my little kitty, and she came running at with claws extending and violently meowing to be rescued, so I put her in my lap until she fell asleep and transferred her to the bed so I could continue my ASEAN Hive work. It's nice to be at work on the computer and turn around see Ms. Meow just living her best life, sleeping and purring after being calmed down.
🐸 The Tree Frogs Return 🌳
When the rainy season returns, so do the tree frogs, and they don't seem interested in trees, but rather just about any location inside the cabin or house. It's not uncommon to wake up in the middle of the night to a cold wet smack on the face, either a tree frog falling from the rafters or a tree frog jumping onto the bed from another random location in the bedroom. I still prefer a tree frog falling on my face than a tiny hot fresh gecko turd, the struggle is real when you have a porous roof and no ceiling.
🔭 My Closest Great Hornbill Encounter 🦤
I guess I have a decent office when I can see rare wildlife in the background behind my monitor. There has been a bird that I've been seeing for the last two years, but the distance has always been so great that I assumed it was some kind of an uncommon vulture species. Even though the bird has always remained far away and elusive, on several occasions I've heard the wings pushing air, and it is far from quiet, dare I say kind of haunting. As I work on the computer I'm always scanning the forest for a gibbon sighting, but today I saw something that looked like a piece of driftwood high in the trees.
I walked to the balcony to investigate further and realized it was some kind of massive bird, and when the bird turned a bit, it resembled a toucan very much. I didn't know what I was looking at in the moment, but I tried to move carefully on the balcony and not make the floor squeak too much while taking pics and videos. When the bird took flight I immediately heard the wings and realized this was the bird I've been seeing high in the sky the last few years. I never realized how colorful it was because I was usually looking up in the sky at them.
Although just on the other side of the river and easy to see with the naked eye, my phone camera pictures don't do very good justice in showing the beauty of this bird. I was just lucky I had my phone nearby and was able to catch a few glimpses of this bird hopping from tree to tree. I only know it was a great hornbill now thanks to some internet research.
At first I was thinking I witnessed a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, buy my research informed these birds are threatened but not rare or endangered. Regardless of that info, they are rare here, so I won't be notifying any neighbors of this sighting because the local Cambodians believe threatened species' meat provides is basically a panacea, able to cure a wide range of ailments and restores sexual vigor.
Well, that's all for now folks, life has been stressful lately because my wife's US Visa interview is going forward while the our daughters' cases have been mishandled, so it's likely we'll face a family separation this summer, possibly with my wife going to the USA alone while I stay behind in Cambodia and take care of our daughters, and good old bureaucracy is to thank for that.
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