Female has a black neck and head, a smaller bill and casque, and blue and yellow around the eye and on the chin.

Voice includes a three-noted throaty chuckle.."[3] They exhibit sexual dimorphism with the males having a rufous head and yellow facial skin while the females having a black head and blue facial skin and a smaller bill.

It inhabits closed-canopy forests, also frequenting logged areas and occasionally isolated trees in clearings at an altitudinal range of 400 to 1,200 m Panay and 350 to 950 m in Negros.

The Walden's hornbills are cavity nesters and use natural or carved-out hollows in tree trunks for its nest.

The female seals itself within the tree cavity and the male is in charge of gathering food for its mate and chicks.

Cooperative breeding wherein immature birds from previous seasons help out in feeding the female and chick have not been observed with this species so far.

Walden's hornbill reproduce very slowly and thus are unable to survive high hunting pressures coupled with heavy logging of the rainforests.

Despite already paltry forest cover, deforestation still continues thanks to both legal and illegal logging, conversion into farmland, mining and road development.

The bird is listed as an EDGE species by the Zoological Society of London where it is ranked as the 50th which uses the basis of evolutionary distinctness and endangeredness.

[8] Further conservation actions proposed are: more funding should be allocated primarily to in situ protection along the lines of PhilCon's guarding scheme; conduct further surveys, particularly on Panay to identify important sites and use this data to decide further actions; continue community awareness programmes to reduce hunting and illegal logging on both Negros and Panay; work in partnership at the government level to strengthen protected area legislation and improve the network in the long term; and support the development of captive breeding and reintroduction programmes.