Common Bulbul
Pycnonotus barbatus
Least Concern (IUCN Red List)Bulbuls
Call and song
Recording 1 · song
Recording 2
Recording 3
About the Common Bulbul
Rather nondescript thrush-sized brown bird with a darker face and throat. The belly is pallid and the undertail white (north part of range) or yellow (south part of range). Often in small flocks and not easily missed due to its noisy, repetitive, and powerful song. Also frequently makes harsh chattering calls. Present in many wooded habitats, absent only from dense forest or treeless desert. Often found in well-vegetated areas in dry landscapes such as gardens, orchards, and oases.
Species account: eBird.org, fetched 2025-12-26 · How these pages are made
Where it has been recorded
Recorded in 49 of the 253 countries we have eBird lists for. Each opens that country's checklist.
- Algeria
- Angola
- Benin
- Botswana
- Burkina Faso
- Burundi
- Cameroon
- Central African Republic
- Chad
- Congo
- Côte d'Ivoire
- Djibouti
- DR Congo
- Egypt
- Equatorial Guinea
- Eritrea
- Eswatini
- Ethiopia
- Gabon
- Gambia
- Ghana
- Guinea
- Guinea-Bissau
- Kenya
- Lesotho
- Liberia
- Malawi
- Mali
- Mauritania
- Morocco
- Mozambique
- Namibia
- Niger
- Nigeria
- Rwanda
- Senegal
- Sierra Leone
- Somalia
- South Africa
- South Sudan
- Spain
- Sudan
- Tanzania
- Togo
- Tunisia
- Uganda
- Western Sahara
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
