Nicators | Nicatoridae

Nicators | Nicatores

A small, exclusively African family of heavy-set, thrush-sized songbirds with olive-green upperparts, greyish underparts and conspicuous yellow spots on the wing coverts. The bill is stout and slightly hooked, and males are markedly larger than females. Their build and colouring are so bulbul-like that nicators spent decades in Pycnonotidae. They were later shuffled towards the shrikes and bush-shrikes until molecular studies revealed an isolated, ancient lineage deserving its own family. Nicators keep to dense thickets, forest edges and the understorey of both dry and moist forest. There they work slowly and deliberately through tangles, taking insects, caterpillars and other invertebrates, with some fruit. They are heard far more often than seen: from deep cover comes a startlingly loud, rich, far-carrying song, a sudden rush of full whistles and liquid gurgles that seems out of proportion to so unobtrusive a bird. The nest is a flimsy, almost see-through platform of twigs placed low in a bush.