'ground hornbill with crickets' | watercolour & graphite

The southern ground hornbill is one of Africa’s most striking — and most endangered — birds. Moving in family groups across open savannas, they walk with slow, deliberate steps, searching for prey on the ground. Their diet is surprisingly varied, but they’re particularly fond of tough catches like small tortoises, which they hammer open with powerful bills, and young hares, which they seize with sharp precision. These birds live in tight-knit family units made up of a dominant breeding pair supported by younger helpers who assist with territory defence, chick feeding, and raising the single chick that survives each breeding attempt. It’s a slow reproductive system — they breed only every few years — which makes them especially vulnerable. Today, habitat loss, persecution, collisions with powerlines, and the loss of hollow nesting trees have pushed ground hornbills into endangered status in southern Africa. Conservation groups now actively protect nests, install artificial nest boxes, and reintroduce young birds to help stabilise their declining populations. Majestic, intelligent, and deeply social, ground hornbills are irreplaceable icons of Africa’s grasslands — and their survival depends on continued, focused protection.