Turacos | Musophagiformes

Toerakoachtigen | Turacos

An order confined to Africa south of the Sahara: medium-sized to large tree-dwellers with a long tail, short rounded wings, a short arched bill and, in nearly all species, a raisable crest. The outer toe can be swung sideways and backwards, so the foot adjusts to branches of very different thickness; the birds move mainly by running and bounding through the canopy and fly only short distances, a few beats followed by a glide on flat wings. The green and the red in the plumage are not structural but come from two copper-bearing pigments known from no other group of birds: green turacoverdin in the body plumage and crimson turacin in the flight feathers, which flares only as the wing opens. The diet is mostly fruit, with leaves, flowers and buds, swallowed whole. Nestlings carry small claws on the wing bend with which they clamber out of the nest well before they can fly.

Families in this order

Turacos | Musophagidae10 speciesTwo forms occur here: forest turacos, grass-green to violet with a white-marked face, a tall crest and crimson flight feathers that flare only as the wing opens, and the wholly grey species of dry savanna and thornveld, with a loose pointed crest and a long tail. The forest birds keep to gorge forest, coastal forest and montane woodland and give themselves away with a deep barking chorus that accelerates and is taken up by several birds at once; the grey species calls a loud, nasal, sharply cut-off note from an exposed perch and is for that reason almost always heard before it is seen. Foraging is silent and agile: the birds run along horizontal branches, hang at fruit clusters and swallow figs and berries whole. Crossing an open gap is done low and reluctantly, in a short burst of beats followed by a glide in which the red of the wing is fully displayed. The nest is a see-through platform of thin twigs in dense foliage; both parents incubate two or three eggs and feed the young on regurgitated fruit pulp.