Antonio Liebana Navarro (Spain) contrasts the crescent-like curved bills of a bonding pair of Asian pied hornbills.
Antonio was leading a photography tour when he noticed a pair of hornbills in fruit trees. The female was preening the hard-to-reach head feathers of the male.
He underexposed the image to merge the birds’ black plumage with the background to emphasise their impressive bills.
By cleaning and rearranging each other’s feathers, hornbills strengthen their lifelong bond.
These birds have unique breeding behaviour. A female seals itself inside a hole in a large forest tree, and a male passes food through a narrow slit to feed them and their brood of chicks.
Spain
Antonio is a Spanish photographer based in Madrid, Spain. He has spent more than 25 years enjoying photography and nature and currently travels the world photographing wildlife. In his country Spain, he works as a technical director for conservation projects, taking photographs of species such as the Iberian lynx and the imperial eagle.
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