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African Broadbill | Smithornis capensis
Kaapse breedbek | Eurilaimo Africano
The African Broadbill is a stocky, streaked forest bird with a strikingly broad, flat bill that sits motionless in the understorey for long periods. It is best known for its display flight: a small circle around a branch during which the wings produce a loud, whirring sound reminiscent of a tiny clockwork motor.
Voice
The display sound is mechanical: a loud, rolling prrrrrrrrrrup lasting about two seconds, made by the vibrating outer primaries during a circular flight of no more than half a metre around the perch, audible at more than a hundred metres. Also a soft, hoarse tchook as a contact call.
Recording: Alwin van Lubeck — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
13–14 cm, stocky with a large head and a short tail. The bill is broad and flat, with a black upper mandible and a pale, pinkish-white lower mandible. The male has a black crown, the female a grey one. The upperparts are olive-brown with dark streaking; a concealed white patch on the back shows only in display or in flight. The underparts are white to cream with heavy black streaks on breast and flanks, sometimes with an ochre wash across the breast. The legs are greenish-grey. Juveniles are duller and browner.
Confusion species
Little risk of confusion. Spotted Flycatcher (Muscicapa striata) is slimmer, perches upright in the open, has a narrow bill and is finely streaked on crown and breast rather than heavily streaked below. Females of African Paradise Flycatcher (Terpsiphone viridis) have a rufous back and tail. African Dusky Flycatcher (Muscicapa adusta) is smaller and unstreaked greyish-brown.
Habitat
The dark lower storey of lowland forest, coastal forest, riverine forest and dense thickets in moist miombo, preferably where lianas and thin horizontal branches leave open spaces below the canopy. It catches insects in short sallies from a fixed perch, often from the undersides of leaves. The nest is a hanging, bag-shaped ball of moss, bark and plant fibres with a ragged 'beard' below, attached to a thin branch over an open space.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
In the region in the east: the coastal and lowland forests of northern KwaZulu-Natal, the eastern highlands of Zimbabwe and the forests along the Zambezi, and further almost all of Mozambique, Malawi and northern and eastern Zambia; also in northern and western Angola. Beyond the region in East Africa north to Kenya and in parts of West and Central Africa.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Listen in the early morning and in overcast weather during the breeding season (October–January) for the whirring display sound, which is often repeated at intervals from the same branch. Then walk slowly towards it and scan the lower horizontal branches: the bird sits motionless and, despite its bold streaking, is hard to find.
Conservation status
Not threatened globally, but in the south of its range closely tied to the few remaining coastal and lowland forests. In South Africa the population is small and depends on protected forest; clearance for farming, charcoal and development is the main threat throughout.
Scientific name
Smithornis capensis | (Smith, 1839)
Smith described the species in 1839 as Platyrhynchus capensis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Smithornis was introduced in 1850 by Bonaparte. Smithornis honours the Scottish army surgeon and zoologist Andrew Smith (1797–1872), who described the fauna of South Africa, with the Greek ornis, 'bird'. capensis means 'of the Cape', after the Cape region of South Africa. The specimen the first description was based on came from coastal forests of northern Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.