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Yellow-Throated Nicator | Nicator vireo
Geelkeelnicator | Conquistador Gorjiamarillo
The Yellow-Throated Nicator is the smallest nicator, a bird of the Central African rainforest that reaches the region only in northern Angola. It keeps to the canopy and middle stratum of moist forest, where its loud, varied song draws attention long before the bird itself.
Voice
A loud, clear and varied song of whistles and short phrases, often with a repeated chew-wee… chew-wee or a series of rolling notes, more whistled and less explosive than in Eastern Nicator. Also a dry tchak.
Recording: Jaap van der Waarde — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
15–17 cm. Olive-green above, with distinct pale yellow spots on the wing coverts and tertials. A yellow supraloral stripe and a narrow yellow eye-ring give the head a ‘spectacled’ look; the cheeks are grey. The male has a bright yellow throat, the female a paler yellow one. Breast and flanks are grey, the belly whitish, the undertail coverts yellowish. The bill is fairly heavy and dark, with a paler lower mandible.
Confusion species
Eastern Nicator Nicator gularis does not occur in Angola; it is much larger and grey-throated. Yellow-Bellied Greenbul Chlorocichla flaviventris has entirely yellow underparts and no yellow wing spots. Simple Greenbul Chlorocichla simplex is plain olive-brown with a white throat and a white eye-ring. Green Hylia Hylia prasina is smaller, with a long pale eyebrow and no wing spots.
Habitat
Moist lowland forest, gallery forest and secondary forest with many lianas, especially edges and clearings. It forages in dense foliage of the middle and upper strata, higher up than Eastern Nicator.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
In the region only in northern Angola: Cabinda and the forests of Uíge, Cuanza Norte and the north-east (Lunda Norte). Beyond the region from Nigeria and Cameroon east through the Congo Basin to Uganda and western Tanzania.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Year-round. Look for it in Angola in the gallery forests and forest edges of the north-west and Cabinda. It sings from dense foliage high in the trees; follow the loud whistles and watch for the yellow throat and wing spots as the bird moves.
Conservation status
Not threatened; widespread and fairly common in Central African forest. The Angolan population is small and depends on the remaining northern forests, which are being degraded by logging and cultivation.
Scientific name
Nicator vireo | Cabanis, 1876
Cabanis described the species in 1876 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Nicator was introduced in 1870 by Hartlaub & Finsch. Nicator comes from the Greek nikatōr, 'conqueror'; why Hartlaub and Finsch chose this name is not known. vireo refers to the American vireos, which this small green-and-yellow nicator superficially resembles. The specimen the first description was based on came from Chinchoxo, Cabinda (Angola).