Still your link's picture of a hornbill does show a distinctive wreathed /undulatus /corrugated horn...
I said 'prominent', not 'distinctive'. As in 'conspicuous and easy to notice.' In comparison to a Great or Rhinoceros Hornbill, a casque like that of the Wreathed hornbill is small and not prominent. (Sorry, birding jargon)
Err... it looks like the original Flight 714 (p.22, frame B1) version differs, for:
- I can't see a red periorbital skin, but a blue one, as you mention...
I attributed this to a colourist mistake, since unless you're an anal ornithologist it's easy to get colours on birds mixed up. I didn't think it a very important difference.
- I can't see a reddish plume from the nape, but a plain black one...
If you're familiar with birdwatching, you'd realise that colours like red and brown often appear black in the shade. If you didn't, now you do ;)
- I can't see a yellow gular colour, but a red one...
Ditto as above, only yellow often appears darker and sometimes brown or orange.
- I can't see neither any gular proeminent pouch,
Look carefully. That orange protruding thing on the throat? That's it. The angle doesn't make it as prominent, but that IS it.
nor its distinct black stripe...
This is an interesting point you raised. At first I thought it was an artist omission, then I discovered there is another very similar looking species of hornbill called the
Plain Pouched (Wreathed )Hornbill which doesn't have the stripe.
- I can't see black feet, but brown ones...
Same as above.
- I can't see a 100cm's large bird....
Um, Why not?
- and I can't see any wreathed /undulatus /corrugated horn or casque on its bill, but just a red spot...
Even if you're not an artist (not saying you aren't, just saying IF), you'll still realise that this IS a drawing, not a photo. Not all the fine details make it in. Surely you know that. Given the size (and relative unimportance) of the bird, is it any surprise an artist should chose to not draw every single corrugation and just colour the horn reddish? Simplification is part of caricature and comics, after all.
Thus all one can say is that Vol 714's bird certainly doesn't look 99% like a Wreathed Hornbill...
Imho, this toucan-like bird just belongs to Tintin's unique world...
Riiight. And the brown sparrows in page 161 frame 10 of
Secret of The Unicorn (which are unnaturally plain, simplified and uniformly brown) are special mutant sparrows in Tintin's unique world. Of course. 9_9
I'm still very inclined to think that this is a Wreathed hornbill, doubly so because toucans are only found in South America, not Asia, and the fictitious Sondonesia was supposed to be in the proximity of Indonesia (Jakarta) where you DO find hornbills.
jock: You're welcome ;) Sorry about sinking the Toucan theory. Personally I'm inclined to think the hornbill is there just to emphasize that they really are in the middle of nowhere. But that's just my opinion. Sometimes a bird is just a bird and an owl just an owl.