Exploring Pigeon Valley: The Crested Barbet

This is the 74th article in an ongoing series that highlights the riches of Pigeon Valley, the urban nature reserve in the heart of Glenwood. The focus of this article is on the Crested Barbet.

In my mind there is a continuum of local birds that has Grey Waxbills (the beautiful little birds with smooth grey bodies, black eye lines and crimson tails) at one end and Crested Barbets at the other. This continuum has elegance at one end and, I regret to say, its lack at the other. I am sure that Crested Barbets have hearts of gold, but their colour combination, to put it most kindly, is striking rather than alluring.

I sometimes think that a manufacturer was once inspired by its colours to make one of those cheap rugs that courageously throws together a wide range of colours. Topped, of course, with an ornamental tuft of little feathers.

ALSO READ: Exploring Pigeon Valley: The Red-fronted Tinkerbird

Its call though is intriguing and even charming. It is a long repetitive trill, rather like a restrained alarm clock. It was this whirring call that alerted me the other day, when I saw this high in a tree just outside the Pigeon Valley reservoir; it is occasionally but seldom in the reserve itself, preferring more open woodland to the forest.

The Crested is the least common of the three local barbets – the others being Black-collared and White-eared. Like them, it goes for fruit and nests in a hollowed-out chamber in dead wood. Our next two articles will review these relatives. Like them, it is enthusiastic about fruit of different kinds, though insects are also taken, and even eggs and chicks.

Crispin Hemson chairs the Friends of Pigeon Valley, a group that undertakes clearing of alien plants, keeps records of bird and mammal sightings and alerts management to any problems.

The Friends have a monthly walk at 7.30am on the second Saturday of each month. Email: friendsofpigeonvalley1@gmail.com.

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