Psilopogon zeylanicus
Silhouette: Vijay Cavale (photo), John E. McCormack, Michael G. Harvey, Brant C. Faircloth, Nicholas G. Crawford, Travis C. Glenn, Robb T. Brumfield & T. Michael Keesey · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~90% in a week >90%
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. The brown-headed barbet was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the puffbirds in the genus Bucco and coined the binomial name Bucco zeylanicus. Gmelin based his description on the "yellow cheeked barbet" that had been described and illustrated in 1776 by the naturalist Peter Brown from a specimen collected in Sri Lanka. The brown-headed barbet is now one of 32 barbets placed in the genus Psilopogon that was introduced in 1836 by Salomon Müller.
Three subspecies are recognised: Psilopogon zeylanicus inornatus (Walden, 1870) – west India Psilopogon zeylanicus caniceps (Franklin, 1831) – Nepal to central India Psilopogon zeylanicus zeylanicus (Gmelin, JF, 1788) – south India and Sri Lanka 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... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kanha National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 2 | Minneriya National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 3 | Wilpattu National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 4 | Udawalawe National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 5 | Bandhavgarh National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | Yala National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 7 | Royal Bardia National Park | 🇳🇵 Nepal | |
| 8 | Satpura National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 9 | Keoladeo National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 10 | Sinharaja Forest Reserve | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 11 | Jim Corbett National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 12 | Ranthambore National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 13 | Chitwan National Park | 🇳🇵 Nepal | |
| 14 | Bandipur National Park | 🇮🇳 India |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bhubaneshwar | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 2 | Colombo [Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte] | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 3 | Bareilly | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 4 | New Delhi | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 5 | Aligarh | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | Chandigarh | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 7 | Varanasi | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 8 | Patna | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 9 | Dehradun | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 10 | Gwalior | 🇮🇳 India |
Likely
About 50% of wildlife watchers report a Brown-headed Barbet sighting in Varanasi on a given day, based on 177 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 10th most-seen of the 92 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 90%, and over a week to over 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
March
In that month about 70% of wildlife watchers report a Brown-headed Barbet in Varanasi on a given day, against about 30% in December, the lowest month. That is one of Varanasi's driest months, with about 10 mm of rain against 250 mm in July.
Between 3 and 6 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Brown-headed Barbet sightings with a recorded time, and about half of them come between 6 pm and 6 am: it is most active around dawn and dusk.
7th of 26
Of the 26 cities where we can rate Brown-headed Barbet sightings, Varanasi ranks 7th at about 50%. The best odds are in Bhubaneshwar (India, about 70%), Colombo [Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte] (Sri Lanka, about 70%) and Bareilly (India, about 60%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Brown-headed Barbet is recorded against all the birds logged in Varanasi (177 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
