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 60% of wildlife watchers report a Brown-headed Barbet sighting in Wilpattu National Park on a given day, based on 305 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 22nd most-seen of the 169 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.
May and October
In those months about 70% of wildlife watchers report a Brown-headed Barbet in Wilpattu National Park on a given day, against about 40% in July, the lowest month. Those are among Wilpattu National Park's wettest months, with about 210 mm of rain a month against 40 mm in February.
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.
3rd of 14
Of the 14 parks where we can rate Brown-headed Barbet sightings, Wilpattu National Park ranks 3rd at about 60%. The best odds are in Kanha National Park (India, about 70%) and Minneriya National Park (Sri Lanka, about 70%). All parks ranked.
Same genus: Psilopogon
The closest relatives of the Brown-headed Barbet that you can see in Wilpattu National Park (genus Psilopogon, Typical Asian Barbets) are Coppersmith Barbet (about 40%) and Crimson-fronted Barbet (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Brown-headed Barbet is recorded against all the birds logged in Wilpattu National Park (305 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), 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.
