The hoopoe (genus: Upupa) joins the LRT

And so does the mousebird, Colius.
They nest together between hornbills + toucans and barbets + tropicbirds.

First bird watchers thought the hoopoe was a kingfisher relative.
Then it was nested with barbets, which is where the large reptile tree (LRT, 1288 taxa) nests the hoopoe, famous for its head crest of mobile feathers.

Using DNA
Prum et al. 2015 nests all the barbets, hornbills, hoopoes, toucans and mousebirds together. And so does the LRT! The only difference is, Prum et al. split mousebirds off first, toucans last. The untenable outgroup for mousebirds and kin includes owls, vultures and the hoatzin in order of increasing distance.

Using skeletal traits
the outgroups for the extant taxa listed above are fossil specimens, Septencoracias and Cyrilavis. Owls nest with predator birds, nowhere near this clade.

Not well publicized,
the hoopoe skull appears to have four nostrils (Fig. 2). The anterior two are operative, while the posterior two are novel fenestrae opening dorsally.

Upupa epops (Linneaus 1758) is the extant hoopoe. It nests with mousebirds in the large reptile tree. According to Wikipedia: “The hoopoe has two basic requirements of its habitat: bare or lightly vegetated ground on which to forage and vertical surfaces with cavities in which to nest.”

We’ll look at mousebirds tomorrow.

References
Linnaeus C 1758. Systema naturæ per regna tria naturæ, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Tomus I. Editio decima, reformata.