Farmer in Flight

You usually meet the Malabar pied hornbill perched — a big black-and-white bird under an enormous casqued bill, working a fruiting fig in the canopy. This time it was crossing open sky.

In flight the bird turns heavy and deliberate, broad wings beating hard to carry that great bill through the air, the white of wing and tail flashing at every downstroke. Here those pale feathers are washed warm gold — preen oil worked through the plumage, then caught by the low morning sun.

It crossed a single gap in the trees at Ganeshgudi, and this was the frame — the forest’s farmer, briefly, on the wing.