"THERE's never a typical day in conservationism!" she begins, smiling. Dimples flashing, her limpid eyes doesn't leave mine as she sits across me over cups of coffee. I agree ruefully and we laugh heartily together. We're old friends — she and I.
I've known Ravinder Kaur for more than a decade since I first joined the Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) in 2008, as a wide-eyed city girl who'd jump out of her skin at the mere sight of an insect.
I spent my first few months being hazed by seasoned "nature" people; from finding a whiskery centipede curled up in my desk drawer, to catching sight of a snake (non-venomous thankfully) hanging from above the toilet seat; facing fat leeches perched merrily on my feet during my first forest trek (my screams could be heard reverberating through the quiet forest) right up to being urged to pet a reticulated python that had been rescued from the roads.
Ravin, as she's fondly called, was kinder to me. Like a mama hornbill, she took me under her wings and gently tutored me on the goings-on at this decrepit-looking bungalow where we were housed (a far cry from the gleaming corporate buildings I was used to in all my previous years of being employed), told me stories about hornbills that I remember to this day and made me feel less of a sore thumb.
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She was the project coordinator of the MNS Hornbill Conservation Project (conceived in 2003) back then.
The fledgling scientist would routinely take a bus up to the small town of Gerik, get on a boat and stay at Kampung Chuweh, the Orang Asli village located on the banks of the Temengor Lake to count plain-pouch hornbills during their migration over the Belum-Temengor forest complex.
Ravin was part of the Hornbill Project back at MNS, which involved observing and counting the Globally Threatened Plain-pouch hornbills during their annual migration.
She'd occasionally venture into the dense forest to observe the nestings of the Helmeted, Rhinoceros and Great hornbills for her Masters project.
"You did visit my 'hut' there, didn't you?" she teases me, dimples flashing again. Yes, I did, recalling how I gingerly (and not very gracefully) climbed up a steep hill where the tiny village was perched.
Her "shack" was rudimentary, to say the least. I shuddered at the thought of staying for days on end in that tiny hut just so she could count the flying hornbills.
But Ravin never complained. Her love for hornbills overrode the inconvenience of being a woman encamped often alone in a remote village. She'd come back after her many trips to regale me with tales of her "adventures" out in the wild.
"Once my hut burnt down and I had to sleep in the kitchen of someone else's hut!" she told me blithely, before breaking into laughter. "I woke up to the curious stares of Orang Asli children crowding around me the next morning!"
She was one of the first few conservationists I befriended back in the day. Thanks to the "hornbill girl", as she was called back then, MNS eventually ceased from being the veritable "house of horrors" to becoming my second home.
In turn, I was her "make-up artist" at her wedding to award-winning photographer Sanjitpaal Singh back in 2010. My own experience in the world of make-up artistry had hitherto been my own face.
If there's a clear case that conservation doesn't provide fat salary cheques most career-minded upstarts would aim for, this would provide the clearest validation of that point — that she would entrust her face to a petrified novice on the most important day of her life.
"You were so nervous!" she recalls, breaking into laughter. "So nervous, you brought your Bible as insurance with you!"
I didn't want to make a mess of your face, I protest, adding: "I could only pray hard that you didn't resemble a drag queen!"
Ravin shakes her head and assures me: "You did a wonderful job!"
Our paths diverged after a few years. While she moved on to focus on completing her Masters of Science in Ecology, I moved on eventually to writing full time.
As it sometimes happens in friendships, we lost touch for most of the years that crept by. She eventually earned her Master's degree in the breeding biology of hornbills in Temengor, Perak, and soon became an expert of sorts in her field.
The KL-born eventually went on to pursue her PhD in Kinabatangan, to study the breeding biology of hornbills in Borneo. Her adventures in East Malaysia were documented on her social media site complete with breathtaking pictures of hornbills, thanks to her intrepid photographer-husband Sanjit. Her hornbill adventures apparently continued even after her MNS days.
Doing river survey work at Kinabatangan, observing hornbills.
From the wilds of Belum-Temengor to Kinabatangan, she spread her wings (figuratively, of course) to continue her research and work on hornbills.
In 2015, Ravin, together with Sanjit, founded Explore Gaia Enterprise, a social enterprise dedicated to wildlife conservation in Malaysia with its present focus on hornbill conservation.
The PhD candidate grew even more tenacious in her hornbill research, and her tireless work in hornbill conservation soon started gaining the attention and the recognition she rightfully deserved.
She was bestowed the 2017 Future Conservationist award given out by the UK-based Conservation Leadership Programme (CLP), one of the 17 across the globe and the only Malaysian to receive the award that year.
This year, Ravin was recently awarded the Marsh Award for Terrestrial Conservation Leadership.
In partnership with Fauna and Flora International (FFI), the award celebrates those who have been active in their communities, highlighting local leaders or organisations making a particularly special contribution to conservation: securing the future of key threatened habitats and species; addressing root causes of biodiversity loss; assisting others in delivering conservational gains.
I lived vicariously through her exploits. The pictures of hornbills reminded me of my short-lived brush with conservationism and opened a floodgate of memories of my time spent with a pair of binoculars pressed against my eyes, watching those glorious birds in flight. It's apparent that once you come across hornbills, they never quite leave you.
FUSSY HOME OWNERS
Ravin has been an animal lover since young.
"I used to joke in MNS saying you'd NEVER hear people say Ravinder Kaur dedicated her life to hornbills!" she tells me with another chuckle.
"But somehow… I don't know…" she says, faltering a little before continuing: "The more I learnt about hornbills, the more I felt for the birds. It's simple really… if you could just give them cavities or nest boxes, you can actually help them survive!"
It's typical Ravin. She's been homing stray animals ever since she was a child. "I can't help it! I love animals!" she protests with a grin. But homing wild birds are a far cry from bringing a stranded puppy or a stray cat back home.
Out of the 57 species of hornbills found in the world (particularly in tropical Africa and Southeast Asia), Malaysia is home to 10 species. The birds are named after the decorative and often vividly coloured projections on their upper distinctive bills.
The hornbills' unusual nesting strategy — shared by no other kinds of birds in the world — is what Ravin is talking about.
When a female hornbill is ready to lay eggs, she enters a cavity in a tree, then seals the entrance using a combination of faeces, regurgitated fruit and mud delivered by her mate. She leaves just a narrow opening, enough for her bill to peek through.
Once sealed in, the female is totally dependent on the male, who passes food to her through the hole. For up to four months, the bird remains walled off from the world as she incubates her eggs and raises the chicks.
A costly and risky nesting strategy (the family is doomed if anything happens to the male), it provides hornbills nearly 100 per cent protection against predators of eggs and hatchlings.
Asian hornbills including this Wreathed hornbill depend on natural cavities of trees to build their nest.
These birds rely on natural tree cavities made by other animals such as woodpeckers and sunbears. It's strange considering that most hornbill species have a large casque and a huge imposing bill that seem fit for creating holes in trees (or pecking someone's head off). Neither of which they do at all.
"Their large bill and casque are useless!" I exclaim, rolling my eyes. She agrees. "Totally useless. They can't make a hole in the tree. That's why large tall trees with cavities are important for their breeding," she replies, shaking her head.
This poses a huge problem for these unique birds. With logging and agricultural expansion happening in the country, many large cavity-bearing trees have been removed.
In Kinabatangan, which is home to eight species of hornbills, there are not many cavity-bearing trees to go around, despite the proliferation of fig trees which are integral to the hornbills' diet.
The inspiration for creating nest boxes came from the successful breeding of hornbills pioneered by eminent ornithologist Dr Pilai Poonswad and her team in Thailand.
Ravin (second from right) with the team from HUTAN.
"Dr Pilai had visited Kinabatangan, and she advised the Sabah-based non-governmental organisation HUTAN to put up nest boxes for hornbills that needed tree cavities to breed," recalls Ravin.
In 2013, HUTAN-KOCP (Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project), the Chester Zoo and ZooParc de Beauval piloted a set of artificial nest boxes, which remained devoid of hornbill activity for four years.
"There needed to be more research done on why these boxes were not attracting hornbills. So when HUTAN were looking for researchers to study these creatures, I jumped at the opportunity!" she says, smiling.
A collaborative effort was soon formed with the PhD candidate, Sabah Wildlife Department, Sabah Forestry and HUTAN to conserve hornbills in Kinabatangan.
"My thesis was focused on the breeding biology of the Helmeted hornbills. In addition, I was doing river surveys, observing the nest boxes and collecting data on the critically-endangered hornbill that nested deep in the forests of Kinabatangan," she explains, before quipping: "I was drawn to the fact that I'll be helping to give these birds a home. It's in my nature, you see!"
HOME BUILDERS
The conservationist has devoted her life to protect hornbills.
From pre-dawn boat rides to trekking through dense forests, she admits that the five-year long research has been quite an adventure. "… but it's no fun negotiating through a pitch-dark forest with your headlamps on. You're literally advertising your presence in a forest!" she exclaims, chuckling.
Ravin and her team, including husband Sanjit and her "human Swiss Army knives" ("They can do everything! I am really dependent on them!") local Sabahans, Helson Hassan and Amidi Majinun, observed the Helmeted hornbill from the crack of dawn — when the male first begins feeding the encased female — right until sundown.
Sanjit and Ravin in front, with their 'Swiss Army knives guys', Amidi Majinun (back left) and Helson Hassan (back right).
"Eight hours of observation, and then I trek back, take that boat ride and return to feed those data into my research work," she says dryly.
It's hard work and definitely not easy having to live with very basic comforts while she trekked back and forth with precious data on the habits of the skittish birds she was endeavouring to protect.
"Data is important," she asserts. "Most of these birds are already threatened by a host of issues including poaching and logging, and there's so little data out there to protect them and ensure their survival."
The cavity where the hornbill pair bred their young was a tall tree about 57 metres high.
The rare and critically endangered Helmeted hornbill became the focus of Ravin's research.
"A shorea pauciflora, which is a rather endangered tree. Imagine… an endangered bird making its nest in an endangered tree!" she enthuses, eyes shining, quipping again: "They are very picky real estate owners. They want a 'mansion' (tall trees) with high ceilings!"
From research, they realised that most hornbills were particular about the "type" of cavity to breed in.
"They preferred 'high' ceilings', a floor bed that was in line with the opening of the tree, and a cavity that isn't large because they prefer to squeeze their way into the hole. The temperature had to be cool but humid inside the cavity. The nest boxes had to replicate all these conditions in order for the hornbill to use them," she reels off the conditions dryly.
Eddie Ahmad and Sudirman from HUTAN/KOCP installing an artificial nest box for hornbills.
It's simply not about putting out a box in the wild for the hornbills to nest in, she points out. "It's not a bird house that you stick out in your garden lah!" she adds with another chuckle. "The nest boxes have to be placed at a certain height. Tall trees, remember?"
With these adjustments made for nest boxes, the original boxes saw its first success four years after its installation.
In 2017, the boxes attracted their first pair of Rhinoceros hornbills; in July of that year, a pair successfully fledged a chick! This was the first ever wild pair of Rhinoceros hornbills to nest in an artificial nest box.
One of the artificial nest boxes installed in 2013, being visited by the Bushy crested hornbill.
New nest boxes were designed to mimic the temperature and humidity conditions of real tree cavity. These were installed and have been visited by four hornbill species!
"We had five Rhinoceros hornbill chicks fledge in total between 2017 and 2019, from two boxes," she adds proudly.
Hornbills aren't the only ones to visit the boxes, she tells me with a chuckle. Three of them were taken over by other species, including the red giant gliding squirrel, civet, and stingless bees.
"We're also into renovation!" she tells me with another laugh. Natural cavities that have become shallow and inhabitable for the hornbills have been given a new lease of life by Ravin and her team.
"We'd go around restoring natural cavities so that the hornbills would return to those trees again," she says, smiling. "You're into the construction business now. Who would have thought that to be possible?" I joke, and we laugh.
As she continues to regale me with stories of her exploits out in the wild, I am reminded once again of our time back in MNS when she took it upon herself to "home" the lost city girl who had arrived at the bungalow in heels and a handbag.
It's simply in her nature to make people feel at home. I suppose it's no different for the hornbills at Kinabatangan now. They have Ravinder Kaur, the "hornbill girl" to thank for that.
