A Mukha X Sonali Prasad Exclusive From Pakke Tiger Reserve

I like big beaks and I cannot lie. In fact, I have a wallpaper filled with them — bird bills and appendages of all shapes and colors, from the Toco Toucan’s showy mandible to the flamboyant flamingo’s filtering neb and the spoonbill’s, well, spoon-shaped bill. But only a few contenders can beat the majesty of a hornbill beak. Prodigious, prominent and powerful.

Hornbills are elaborate creatures — wonky alarms with mighty wingspans and protruding peckers, an undeniable presence.

They are an identity in the northeast, with many a tribal folklore wrapped around them. Therefore, to satiate my itch of spotting one in the wild, I am on my way to Seijosa, a dainty hamlet in the East Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh.

The minute we cross the Assam border into Arunachal territory, the difference is stark and visible. People are quieter, houses are quainter, and the starlit sky and the rumbling river take precedence. Seijosa is sleepy, located on the fringes of the Pakke Tiger Reserve, but with a rambunctious underbelly of culture, festivities, rice beer, bonfires, dance, and music.

We are a party of two — along with me is Indrajeet Rajkhowa, a rather calm and patient photographer, perfect for bird spotting. We arrive in the evening hours, illuminated by the light from a popular butcher’s shop and a handful of grocery windows. Our destination is on the less populous side of the Pakke river. Electricity vanishes mid-way across the bridge connecting the banks, and a faint phone signal breathes its last, banishing all hopes of connectivity.

It’s late so we adjust ourselves into our abode, a humble residence located right across the entrance of the Tiger Reserve. Our rooms are named after the different species of hornbills that can be found in Pakke, and I instinctively pick the one christened after the most bewitching of them all, the Great Indian Hornbill. Rajkhowa settles in the other room named after its cousin, the Rufous-necked Hornbill. Two others species that call Pakke their home are the Oriental Pied Hornbill and the Wreathed Hornbill.

Curtains draw as soon as 7 p.m. in Pakke, so I pull Rajkhowa from our quarters to sit in a little patch of grass we call garden, connecting stars and drawing out animated creatures in the night sky. He lets me flourish with my idiosyncrasies, talking very little, interrupting only upon spotting a single firefly.

We wait for the dancing light to multiply; our lizard brains eased without entangled wires or screen lit faces. If the night is anything to go by, the morning will be truly magical. Let us hope we spot a hornbill.

The Closet Beak-Maker

Morning sets in early in the land of the rising sun, and we are out and about in the national park, with a very memorable forest guard for company. 30-year-old Sanjay Tissu, part of the Special Tiger Protection Force, is our sensei for the day. A chiseled face with kind eyes that contrast with his camouflage uniform, Tissu is Assamese by origin, but Pakke is his home. With fifteen years of service adorning his shoulders, he narrates a myriad tales of the jungle spanning 862 square kilometers.

It’s the season when hornbills are flitting from one mother tree to another, choosing the location of their nests.

“You will hear them fly from a distance,” Tissu says. “When they open their wings, even the sky quivers.”

“You will hear them fly from a distance,” Tissu says.“When they open their wings, even the sky quivers.”

We strain our ears, in hopes of catching a faraway flight. Nothing. Tissu teaches patience. They will come when you least expect them.

We move up to one of the anti-poaching camps stationed inside the reserve, named Khari. The structures are simple but adorned with paintings and caricatures of the omnipresent wildlife — a rather cross-eyed tiger, a mischievous black bear, a colorful hornbill. Who’s the Banksy decorating these otherwise sober and armed bases, we ask.

“Tissu, who else!” says P.B. Rana, the forest officer responsible for Seijosa range. “He said he likes to paint in his leisure so we gave him all the supplies. There was no stopping him after that.”

Our tough, rifle-adorned, knife-wielding, soldier-like sensei morphs into a burst of delicate, psychedelic creativity. Pakke does have many tales in store.

We continue with our hornbill search for the day, trudging along dirt trails, rocky river beds, and hazel hills, but to no avail. Rajkhowa senses my disappointment and consoles me. It is only the beginning, he says. We head back, only to witness something as special as the bird itself.

The making of a beak

Yes, Tissu makes beaks. More precisely, artificial beaks that adorn the traditional headgears of the Nyishi tribe — a conservation effort to save the hornbills.

The Nyishis, once known for their hunting prowess, wear what is called a 'pudum', a cane helmet festooned with a myriad of hornbill feathers and topped with the beak and casque of the bird. It is an identity, a sign of manhood and valor.

Overhunting for the beak and meat, as well as deforestation in Arunachal, caused the bird’s population to plummet severely. The Great Indian Hornbill — the casque of which is most commonly adorned by the Nyishis — was pushed into the ‘near threatened’ category of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species by the year 2000.

That same year, a forest official came up with a rather simple yet revolutionary idea to save the state bird.

Chukhu Loma, a Nyishi himself, decided to fabricate synthetic hornbill beaks and offer them for use. He enlisted the aid of the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) and other organizations to help with the design and manufacture of the beaks so that together, with the forest staff and the locals, they can make a fiberglass alternative. The artificial version was made available for free in exchange for a real hornbill beak.

Mukha Ranger Ranger Indrajeet Sonali Pakke

“At first, there was resistance,” explains range officer Rana.
“But now, there is hardly anybody using the real beak.”

“At first, there was resistance,” explains range officer Rana. “But now, there is hardly anybody using the real beak.”

“At first, there was resistance,” explains range officer Rana.
“But now, there is hardly anybody using the real beak.”

Till date, the WTI and the forest department have distributed 5500 bill replicas amongst the Nyishis.

“We participate in the Pakke Paga festival every year, where we carry out the exchange scheme,” says Aniruddha Roy of WTI. “We provided 45 artificial beaks in 2017, all of which were exchanged for original beaks.”

Tissu now holds the mantle of the in-house beak-builder. He shows us many options - acrylic, mud, plastic, but the fiberglass version is the most realistic and the lightest of them all. While creating one from scratch by molding together three different parts of the beak together, he talks about his plans to make a batch for an upcoming local festival.

“Celebrations are the best times to reach out to the community,” he says. “Everyone is in a good mood and we can spread the word.”

As he puts a fresh model to dry under the feeble sun, he promises to introduce us to the Nyishi tribe next morning.

“They are the real guardians,” he says. “The nest protectors.”

The Hunters
Turn Protectors

When one imagines Arunachali tribals, one visualizes ornate clothing, tattoos, intricate jewelry, wrinkled faces, piercings, fancy headdresses and everything else that pops up on postcards or on Google search. But as our sensei sarcastically reminds us, it is 2018. Yes, the tribe wears and owns traditional garb, but the members also own normal shirts, skirts, and trousers. Also, some of them are young as well, obviously.

It is Arunachal Statehood Day, the day when the state was officially declared as an entity in 1987. We are told that the Nyishi community is busy with flag hoisting preparations at a local school. Rajkhowa and I stand like incongruous backbenchers during the entire ceremony, admiring the new hip crop of school goers with low-hanging pants and colored hair.

One colorful crown bobs up in the audience, and I wait for the owner to stand up after the ceremony. When he does, I see a young chap in his mid-30s, suave and clean-shaven, wearing aviators and a snazzy watch, sporting his pudum over a tailored suit. A perfect blend of tradition processed with the motions of time. On cue, my photographer and I make a move and we start scouting Nyishi members to interview, scheduling times at different locations and residences.

The Nyishi community plays a pivotal role in the Hornbill Nest Adoption Program (HNAP), a campaign set up by the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF), an NGO that has been studying hornbills in Pakke Tiger Reserve for fifteen years. In 2011, NCF started enlisting and paying tribe members to collect ecological data on hornbill nesting and for monitoring populations beyond the peripheries of the protected area.

Currently, there are ten such nest protectors from eight villages who have been trained by NCF under the watchful eyes of the seniors from the Ghora-Aabhe Society, a group of village heads formed by the Nyishi community. They have learnt how to search for nests, identify seeds fallen below cavities to determine hornbill diets, record different stages of breeding and other associated skills.

Despite being exhausted from his ceremonial duties at the school, Takum Nabum, chair of the Ghora-Aabhe Society, welcomes us to sit down for a warm cup of afternoon tea at a local grocery stall. “The initiative not only provides monthly salaries of Rs. 6500 a month (USD $100) to the Nyishi nest protectors,” he explains. “It has also induced a lot of eco-tourism. People come from far and wide to stay with us and spot our state bird.”

Reading from a dilapidated pocket notebook, Nabum belts out several community laws that have been set in place to protect the hornbill. “Fines are a big deterrent,” he says. “If you cut a nesting tree, you can be fined up to Rs. 1,50,000 (USD $2298). If you hunt a hornbill, depending on what species it is, it can be up to Rs 50,000 (USD $766) per bird.”

These initiatives have made a dent in the minds of local villagers, but their impact on the hornbill is yet to be measured, as there is no continuous long-term monitoring of the bird’s populations yet.

“Estimating hornbill populations require dedicated resources - manpower and sampling effort - as the hornbills are relatively rare,” comments Rohit Naniwadekar, an NCF scientist. “But we are in talks with the forest department to collaborate on a method which can be integrated with their existing processes of estimating tiger prey within the protected area.”

In the forests adjoining the Pakke, NCF and the nest protectors are leading the effort to estimate hornbill abundances.

But like most good campaigns, HNAP relies on donations and contributions from individuals, organizations and other entities. One can ‘adopt’ a hornbill nest for as little as Rs. 6000 (USD $92), contributing to the salaries of the Nyishi nest protectors and other costs of the initiative.

More than a hundred people have partaken, including several international zoos such as the Berlin Zoo in Germany, the Amiens Zoo Metropole in France, the Rotterdam Zoo in the Netherlands and the Atlanta Zoo in the United States.

As a result, the program has helped protect 39 nests between
2012–2018 and recorded 103 fledglings — much to the
delight of the Nyishi guardians.

As a result, the program has helped protect 39 nests between 2012–2018 and recorded 103 fledglings — much to the delight of the Nyishi guardians.

As a result, the program has helped protect 39 nests between
2012–2018 and recorded 103 fledglings — much to the
delight of the Nyishi guardians.

“I am always amazed by how many people actually care about this bird,” says Vijay Tachang, a 36-year old nest protector from A1 village who became part of the program in 2014. “The wings of the hornbill have spread far and wide.”

With only a couple of hours left to dusk, the young protector rushes us to a nesting location in Darlong village, a half-hour car ride away. “Wait there,” he says. “Once the sky turns orange, they will soon fly by.”

A Hornbill Pair, At Last.

A Hornbill Pair,
At Last.

The dusk remains uneventful despite Tachang’s optimism, but by now, we are hooked. Rajkhowa and I cannot leave without seeing the bird, so we make a last-minute decision to stay an extra day and try again.

As dawn breaks, we walk carefully behind Tissu on trails within Pakke Tiger Reserve, our eyeballs darting from one small leafy movement to another. Then, we hear a distant flap.

Another flap, this time close enough to sound like a primitive helicopter whizzing past the jungle. Tissu nudges me urgently and I turn over, just in time to see an elegant Great Indian Hornbill fly by. With a kingly yellow casque and beak; and shades of black, white and lemon patterned over its wings, the bird is an intoxicating sight against the sundry veneers of green in Pakke.

As the hornbill perches to preen, I sense the sadness of leaving Seijosa well inside me.

The birds, their protectors, the master beak-maker — all seem to be part of a small and satisfied world, where time reflects in aviator sunglasses, and tradition brims like a hearty cup of rice beer.

Rajkhowa breaks my thought with a poor whistle. “Look up,” he whispers.

On the tree in front of us, silhouetted by the verdure, are two birds sitting on a single branch, engrossed in their morning conversations, their beaks pirouetting around each other in play. A hornbill pair, at last.