The Brown-Headed Barbet With Sound | Asian Barbet | Polos Kottoruwa

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Piciformes
Family: Megalaimidae
Genus: Psilopogon
Species: P. zeylanicus
Binomial name
Psilopogon zeylanicus

The Brown-headed barbet (Psilopogon zeylanicus) is an Asian barbet species native to the Indian subcontinent, where it inhabits tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests. It is widespread, with its range stretching from the Terai in southern Nepal in the north to Sri Lanka in the south, encompassing most of peninsular India, and listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. It is an arboreal species of gardens and wooded country which eats fruit and insects. It is fairly tolerant of humans and often seen in city parks. It nests in a tree hole, laying 2-4 eggs. It forages on mangoes, ripe jackfruit, papaya, banana, figs and similar cultivated fruit trees. Its habitat includes urban and country gardens; it tends to eschew heavy forest. It nests in a suitable hole in a tree that it will often excavate. Both sexes incubate the eggs and often communicate with each other using their Kura, kura calls.

The adult has a streaked brown head, neck and breast, and a yellow eye patch. The rest of the plumage is green. It is 27 cm (11 in) long with a large head, short neck and short tail.

Its call is a repetitive kutroo…kutroo…kutroo, but silent in the winter. Others take up the call when one starts.

Very common breeding resident of all zones while becoming less common at higher hills. Much prefer to village gardens and open lands than dense forests. It lives in pairs or sometime in small loose feeding parties, usually keep in touch by means of its loud monotonous call. Its food consist mainly of varies kind of berries and fruits. It also feed on insects such as beetles taken by fly, since being an arboreal bird it never descending to the ground. The main breeding season is from February to July while secondary season may be possible in August to September. Nest, a hole in a soft-wooded dead stem or branch of a tree pecked out by birds themselves.