This phenomenal bird is the Rhinoceros Hornbill – the largest species of hornbill and one of the strangest creatures in the animal kingdom.

It was this bird, as well as the orangutan, that I most desperately wanted to photograph in the wild whilst in Borneo’s famous Danum Valley. Frustratingly, despite several long days of jungle trekking, I saw neither of these species up close. The many other beautiful animals of the region certainly made up for it though, and this stunning specimen was photographed at a bird sanctuary in Kuala Lumpur on my way home.

While I sadly didn’t get to photograph a wild Rhinoceros Hornbill, you would regularly catch glimpses of them. Its flapping wings create a remarkable whooshing sound that reverberates throughout the rainforest, and countless times you would hear one approaching and look up just in time to see it glide overhead.

The Rhinoceros Hornbill is a lot like a Tinder date that doesn’t quite live up to expectations. Its profile picture is absolutely stunning, but as soon as it moves or talks, it instantaneously loses all grace and elegance. This bird is far too large to be living in a dense jungle, and it crashes its way dramatically through the canopy rather than attempting to weave or dodge. In a similar fashion, you expect its call to be like that of so many other birds, melodious and tuneful, especially since its horn is actually a hollow chamber used to amplify its cries. Instead, the Rhinoceros Hornbill’s squawk is somewhere between the sound of a dog with a sore throat and that of a teenager’s voice breaking.

Nonetheless, this bird is a true wonder of the natural world.

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Rhinoceros hornbill (Buceros rhinoceros), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia