African and Green Broadbills | Calyptomenidae

Groene breedbekken | Eurilaimos verdes

A small family of African broadbills (Smithornis) and Asian green broadbills. Only the African Broadbill occurs in this region. Broadbills are suboscines, a very ancient passerine lineage that split off before the true songbirds evolved, and only a few such families survive in the Old World, the pittas among them. The African Broadbill is stocky and big-headed, with a strikingly wide, flat bill ending in a small hook. It sits motionless in the shady understorey of forest and dense thicket, sallies out to snap up insects, and returns to its perch. The male is most easily detected by its display: a short horizontal loop of less than a metre around its perch, during which modified flight feathers produce a mechanical, trilling 'frrrrrup'. The sound is made by the wings, not the voice, and the white back patch is puffed out as he flies. The nest is a pear-shaped purse with a ragged 'beard' of plant material, hung low from a branch.