Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"

Today I bring you a very unusual bird I'm fortunate to have seen in the wild. It's an African Broadbill, Smithornis capensis ('Smith's bird from the Cape'). The genus is named for Sir Andrew Smith, a Scottish surgeon, zoologist, explorer and ethnographer, and for the Cape Province, where it doesn't actually occur, only entering South Africa in the far North. I saw one with my friend Ruan Stander, in the Mphaphuli Nature Reserve in Venda. It was fairly close, and was giving a display, which we heard before seeing it. I'll speak more about that later. Broadbills are Suboscines (also called Tyranni), a group of songbirds with somewhat less intricately developed vocal organs than the oscines, which are the most numerous of the songbirds. Most suboscines live in South America, but a few occur in Africa and Asia, including the Pittas and the Asities. The Broadbills used to be classified as a single family, but they're now divided into two, the Eurylaimidae, which is mainly Asian with a single African member, and the Calyptomenidae, three of which are African, including this broadbill, and three Asian.

So, the African broadbill is actually not the only broadbill in Africa. Two of the others are closely related and similar, though one is a bit larger, while the African member of the Eurylaimidae, Grauer's Broadbill, is smaller and mostly green in colour. Broadbills are rather rare and all live in forests. They're not easily seen, and few people know about them. They're named for the fact that indeed their bills are broad, especially their gapes. That's because they mostly hunt insects in mid-flight, which they gulp up in their bills. They also pick insects off the surface of leaves and tree bark. When first discovered, they were thought to be members of the Flycatcher family; now we know any similarities between them and flycatchers are due to convergent evolution. In actuality, they are very distantly related to flycatchers, which are oscines.

In Africa, this broadbill has a broad range: it is mainly in south-central and south-eastern Africa, with a smaller population in central and west-central Africa. All these live in forest or densely wooded areas. In South Africa, they occur in the coastal forests of KwaZulu-Natal, and in the forests of Venda, in the far north of Limpopo Province. This bird sticks to shady and secluded spots in the middle layer of the forest, mostly sitting unobtrusively on a perch where its streaky brown plumage camouflages it well. From there it sallies forth to catch insects like flies or moths. It will also glean insects from foliage, or sometimes pick them off the forest floor.

Broadbills breed at the start of summer, when insect populations are high. The male and female then engage in displays. The one Ruan and I saw, is the typical display mostly given by the male. It sits on a branch, from where it repeatedly flies out a short distance, and returns to its perch, giving a frog-like 'prrrup'-call. Only, it's not actually a call! It's been determined that this sound is made by its wing feathers, as it rapidly vibrates them in flight. There are actually more birds than most people would think, that use their feathers for making prominent sounds for display purposes. But they're still few compared to the majority of birds who sensibly use their voices to sing. The 'prrrup'-sound is surprisingly loud and far-carrying, which is why it helped Ruan and me to locate our bird. Apart from the sound, the displaying bird also fluffs up its back feathers, as shown in my painting, revealing a bright white patch, which is visible from a good distance in the dim forest light. This all makes it easier for its mate to find it. Once the pair is together, they give a mutual display, first sitting about 45 cm/18" apart on a branch, flicking their wings, then hanging upside down for about 30 seconds, still flicking their wings, and uttering calls which so far I'm not sure are actually calls or still wing-sounds.

Broadbill nests are also very characteristic. They look like masses of moss or debris hanging from the branches. From top to bottom, they can reach a length of about 1 m/yard. They're built from lichens, grasses, rootlets, leaves and twigs which are slung over a branch and then matted together around a central cavity, with a small entrance hole in the side with a bit of a 'porch' hanging over it. The female lays up to three eggs. She incubates, while the male guards her and the nest and brings food to her and, after they hatch, the chicks.

The African broadbill is widely distributed and not in overall danger of extinction. But in South Africa, it has much suffered from destruction and fragmentation of its coastal forest habitat, and is currently a rare species, in need of stringent protection of its remaining habitat.

Willem

17.04.23 Front Page

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