This intense moment unravels as a hornbill underestimates its victim and the dead snake fights back and chokes the bird – Was the meal worth the risk? This insane sighting happened just North of Satara in the Kruger National Park.
Bev Field, a 50-year-old house executive witnessed this intense moment during a visit and shared the story with LatestSightings.com: “We came across a family of southern ground hornbills foraging. There were 4 adults and 1 juvenile. We watched them for a while and then noticed that the juvenile was feeding on a snake and seemed to be struggling.”
“We realized that the bird had swallowed half the snake and couldn’t swallow the rest or regurgitate the snake. We watched for about 45 minutes as the bird tired from carrying the big snake around, trying to get it out of its throat.
It was a very big snake for the youngster. The interesting part for us was that the adults kept foraging and didn’t show any distress for the struggling juvenile.”
