Tree-Babblers and Scimitar-Babblers

Twenty-eight species covering two quite different ways of making a living. The scimitar-babblers carry the family's signature feature: a long, strongly downcurved bill used to probe leaf litter and crevices in bark, on birds that mostly stay low and out of sight in dense undergrowth. The tree-babblers bundled in alongside them are a plainer, more warbler-like bunch — small, round, short-billed birds that work the low and mid-storey of forest in loose flocks, easier to see well even if less dramatic to look at.

Rufous-capped Babbler is a good example of the tree-babbler side of the group: a small, plain, olive-and-buff bird lifted out of the ordinary mainly by its warm rufous cap, moving through undergrowth and forest edge in the kind of small mixed party typical of the family.