Phoeniculidae – Wood Hoopoes & Scimitarbills

The Phoeniculidae or Wood Hoopoes & Scimitarbills are a small African family of near passerine birds in the Bucerotiformes order, along with Upupidae (Hoopoes) and Phoeniculidae (Hornbills). They live south of the Sahara Desert and are not migratory. While the family is now restricted to Sub-Saharan Africa, fossil evidence shows that the it once had a larger distribution. Fossils attributed to this family have been found in Miocene rocks in Germany.

The wood hoopoes were thought to be related to the kingfishers and rollers, but DNA sequencing and other research now places them with other Bucerotiformes. A close relationship between the hoopoe and the wood hoopoes is also supported by the shared and unique nature of their stapes. The wood hoopoes most resemble the true hoopoe with their long down-curved bills and short rounded wings. According to genetic studies, the two genera, Phoeniculus and Rhinopomastus, appear to have diverged about 10 million years ago, so some systematists have treated them as separate subfamilies or even separate families.

Green Wood Hoopoe Phoeniculus purpureus – ©Dubi Shapiro

The wood hoopoes are a morphologically distinct group, unlikely to be mistaken for any other. These species are medium-sized at 23cm to 46 cm long, much of which is the tail. They have metallic plumage, often blue, green or purple, and lack a crest. The sexes are similar in all but two species, the Forest Wood Hoopoe and the Common Scimitarbill. Their bills are either red or black, although young red-billed species also have black bills, bill colour being correlated with age. The legs are scarlet or black, short, with thick tarsi. They climb tree trunks in the manner of a woodpecker, and when feeding on the ground they hop rather than walking like the true hoopoe. Their tails are long and strongly graduated (the central feathers are the longest), and marked conspicuously with white, as are their wings.

Abyssinian Scimitarbill Rhinopomastus minor – ©Dubi Shapiro

They are birds of open woodland, savannah, or thornbrush, and are mainly arboreal. They require large trees both for feeding on as well as to provide hollows for nesting and nocturnal roosting. Two species are found exclusively in rainforest, the Forest Wood Hoopoe and the White-headed Wood Hoopoe. All the other species are found in more open woodland and bush.

They feed on arthropods, especially insects, which they find by probing with their bills in rotten wood and in crevices in bark. They nest in unlined tree holes, laying two to four eggs, which are blue, grey, or olive, and unmarked in most species.