Flame-Throaded Bulbul Bird Looks Like It Is Wearing A Suit And Bowtie

This bird is incredibly well dressed.

Rachel

• Published in Animal Stories
• November 7, 2021

There are some animals that you do not see that often, because, luckily, their habitats remain largely untouched by human activity. Human activity, including land clearing and deforestation, has destroyed the habitats of so many animals—way too many animals in fact.

The bird of our attention today is the flame-throated bulbul, and it has no intention of going extinct anytime soon! It is a beautiful creature that lives in untouched forests and gathers berries with its friends; it sounds super cute, doesn’t it?

This bird used to be considered a subspecies, but, luckily, its status has been elevated to make it a full species—which, I mean, gives them bragging rights! There are a lot of technicalities as to why it was not included, but now scientists have managed to note enough differences to support its upgraded classification.

While this bird is not common in many places in the world, it is still a beautiful bird to learn about due to its natural beauty and ability to live a human-free life. So, get ready to learn everything you will ever need to know about the flame-throated bulbul.

Native to India the fancy and scientific name for it (if you are into that sort of thing) is Rubigula gularis.

This is the flame-throated bulbul.

It is a member of the bulbul family of passerine birds. The bulbul family describes a collection of birds that are medium-sized, and they are distributed across a wide area: across most of Africa, and over into the Middle East, from tropical Asia to Indonesia, and there are even some as far north as Japan!

The flame-throated bulbul is native to Southern India. It is only found in the forests of the Western Ghats. They can be found in the lowlands and foothills of the Ghats, and they go up to 900m to 1200m high. The main location of flame-throated bulbul is the Western Ghats from southern Maharashtra and Goa southwards.

The birds are super funky looking. They are around 18cm long, making it a medium-sized bird. It has an olive-green back, and a yellow chest, it has a little black head and an orangey-red throat. This makes it look like it is wearing a yellow suit with a red bowtie! Its eyes are super vibrant: the iris is white (although it appears pale blue) which contrasts starkly with its head, meanwhile, its beak is also a dark colour. It doesn’t have a crest, which is unusual for a bird like this.

Male and female flame-throated bulbuls are very similar in appearance.

Their favourite place is in scrubby habitats, evergreen forests, in the scrub and thickets alongside rivers, in amongst mixed bamboo, and old forest clearings that are overgrown with jungle. Rarely, they have been spotted in coffee plantations or on the edges of forests. Luckily for them, their habitat is largely untouched, meaning that the flame-throated bulbul gets to live a solitary life.

Flame-throated bulbul’s are often spotted foraging in small groups for berries and small insects. They feed on berries, insects, figs, and small fruits. The idea of these birds going out in small groups on gathering missions is super cute!

After she has laid the legs, the female flame-throated bulbul will incubate them for 18 to 20 days alone. The male will help to feed her, and, once the eggs have hatched, he will help to feed them too.

The breeding season for a flame-throated bulbul is between January and August. They build a nest in the fork of a small, sturdy tree. The process of building the nest takes a long time. For around 10 days, after finding the perfect location, the birds build nests out of dead leaves, cobwebs, and grass stalks, and line the inside with softer grass.

Check out this short video of them, and hear their unique song!

There are a large number of these birds in the wild, so they are not in any danger of extinction, isn’t it a relief to know that this bird isn’t in danger of extinction or habitat destruction? It certainly makes a nice change from most of the articles that you read about animals and the environment these days.

Birds are incredibly underrated animals, and their appearances, personalities, and characteristics are often overlooked. Birds are just as special as other types of animals, they just do most of their hanging out above our heads, is all!

H/T: One Big Bird Cage

Rachel