East Africa’s forests and thickets conceal some of Africa’s most spectacular bushshrikes. The scarlet-breasted boubou’s blood-red chest flashes through coastal forests, while tropical boubous perform duets so synchronized they sound like one bird.

Rosy-patched bushshrikes haunt montane bamboo in the Albertine Rift, and grey-headed bushshrikes patrol savanna woodlands. The bizarre sulphur-breasted bushshrike inhabits only a few Tanzanian forests.

These cryptic predators hunt insects, chameleons, and nestlings through dense vegetation from sea level to mountain peaks. Listen for their otherworldly whistles in Kakamega Forest, along the Tana River, or through Bwindi’s misty highlands.