Birds Photo Click 203: Red- vented Bulbul.

Pycnonotus cafer

Red- vented Bulbul.
Photographed in Sri Lanka.

The Red- vented Bulbul is distributed in tropical southern Asia from India and Sri Lanka, east to Burma and parts of Bhutan and Nepal, and southwestern China.

It has been introduced to many other countries including a number of islands such as Fiji, Samoa, New Caledonia, Tonga, and Hawaii and also to some countries in the Middle East including, The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait and even as far as New Zealand, Argentina and the USA. It was once also introduced to Australia but it disappeared by the 1940s.

There are eight recognized subspecies. The ones in the photos depict the subspecies P. c. haemorrhousus, which is found in Sri Lanka (where I photographed them).

Red- vented Bulbul.
Photographed in Sri Lanka.

The preferred habitat includes dry scrub, open forest, plains and cultivated land and it is rarely found in mature forests.

The diet consists of fruit, flower buds and petals, nectar, insects and invertebrates and has also been recorded feeding on small geckos.

In their natural habitat they are very important for seed dispersal of various plant species. However, where they have been introduced they can have a negative impact on the native species. It is in fact listed amongst the world’s top hundred worst invasive species.