Kulinda

Kulinda is a female hamerkop. She is the mother of Ona.
After laying an egg, Kulinda left it in the care of Ono while she went to build a new nest. In the middle of making the nest, Kulinda was approached by the Lion Guard, who led her back to her egg. Upon arrival, the group found that the egg had hatched, and so Kulinda promptly did a bonding dance with her baby. Afterward, Mpishi captured Ona, and Kulinda worked with Ono to save her daughter.
==Biography==
===Early life===
Kulinda lived in the Pride Lands. At some point in her life, she took on a mate and laid an egg.
===Skirmish with Mpishi===
While on patrol, the Lion Guard witnessed a stampede of hyraxes. They wondered what the source of the stampede was and looked up to see a harrier hawk circling overhead. Kion exclaimed that hawks were not allowed to hunt in the Pride Lands, as it was not their territory, and Ono raced after the hawk. Kulinda shielded her nest from the danger and worried what would become of her egg with such a dangerous predator in the area.
With the hawk gone, the Lion Guard congratulated Ono for his heroic rescue. Unbeknownst to the group, Kulinda watched in fascination and decided that Ono would make the perfect babysitter for her egg. Without consulting Ono, she carried her egg to his nest and deposited it among the twigs.
Later that day, the Lion Guard led Ono back to his nest and praised him for a hard day's work. Ono was about to settle down in his nest when he felt Kulinda's egg and realized that a hamerkop had left an egg in his nest. He reacted with confusion, wondering why a hamerkop would abandon its egg, and Kion resolved to find the mother and clear up the confusion. Ono commented that the egg was close to hatching and required someone to sit on it in order to keep it warm. Bunga volunteered to keep the egg warm, but Ono worried that he would be too rough with it and decided to sit on the egg himself.
In the meantime, the Lion Guard tracked Kulinda's scent across the Pride Lands to where she was building a new nest in a tree. Kion questioned Kulinda as to why she had left her egg in Ono's nest, and she explained that she had been building a new nest in preparation for her egg-hatching. She asked the team if her egg was all right, and they assured her that Ono was taking care of it. They then offered to escort her back to Ono's nest.
Kulinda and the Lion Guard arrived at Ono's nest, only to find it empty. Kulinda began to frantically call for her baby, and the baby hamerkop followed her mother's cries to Ono's nest, where the two finally met each other for the first time. Mother and daughter began to imprint on one another, and Ono watched in delight. After the imprint was complete, Kulinda thanked Ono for his help, and he warned her that baby hamerkops could get very distracted by insects. No sooner had he said this when he realized that the baby hamerkop had gone missing again. He, Kulinda, and the rest of the Lion Guard then rushed to save her from danger.
Ono scoped out the area for the baby hamerkop and spotted her wandering near the river. Fuli attempted to save the baby hamerkop from danger but arrived too late to stop her from falling into the raging water. With no time to lose, the Lion Guard and Kulinda pursued the baby hamerkop down the river, only to watch in horror as Mpishi grasped the baby in her talons and took off for the safety of the skies.
Kulinda and Ono attempted to thwart Mpishi's plans, but Mpishi worked with Mwoga the vulture to keep the baby hamerkop from falling back into the Lion Guard's grasp. From the ground, Bunga worked out how he could help Kulinda and Ono, and climbed a tree in order to reach the feuding birds. He managed to knock Mwoga from the sky, but Mpishi only took the baby hamerkop from him and swooped out of harm's way once more.
As Ono watched Mpishi fly away, he worked out how he and Kulinda could work together, and the two flanked her from the front and the back, forcing her to drop the baby. Mpishi crashed unceremoniously to the ground, where she was surrounded by the Lion Guard and forced to return to her own territory.
After the rescue, Kulinda thanked Ono by naming her daughter "Ona" in his honor. The three then did the imprinting dance together, as Ono was now considered part of their family.
===Ono's return to the Pride Lands===
When Ono returned from the Tree of Life, he visited and danced with Kulinda and Ona.
==Physical appearance==
Kulinda is a slender bird with brown feathers. Her head is a slightly darker brown, and the patches around her eyes are an even darker brown. Her wingtips are tan with muddy red borders, and the underside of her tail is a deep brown. She has a long, pointed gray beak and slender, blue-gray legs with long talons.
==Personality and traits==
Kulinda is kind and motherly, with a strong devotion to her daughter, Ona. She is very polite and friendly but will exhibit a more fierce side when her loved ones are in danger.
==Appearances==
* The Lion Guard
** "Ono and the Egg"
** "Return to the Pride Lands"
==Trivia==
* Kulinda was voiced by Elise Allen.
** Allen also served as a writer for The Lion Guard.
* The latter part of Kulinda's name ("linda") means "guard, protect, watch over, save" in Swahili.
==References==
Category:Canon articles
Category:Characters
Category:Females
Category:Hamerkops
Category:The Lion Guard characters
Category:Pride Landers