(Pycnonotus barbatus) [XC721368]
by Peter Boesman from Shai Hills Reserve, Ghana (song)
Common Bulbul (Pycnonotus barbatus) [XC235164]
by Bram Piot from Bamako rive droite, Mali (song)
Nest
Cup-shaped, rigid and thick walled, located in aleafy shrub or small tree.
Subspecies
Garden Bulbul (Pycnonotus barbatus), Somali Bulbul (Pycnonotus somaliensis), Dodson's Bulbul (Pycnonotus dodsoni) and Dark-capped Bulbul (Pycnonotus tricolor) (Sibley and Monroe 1990, 1993) have been lumped into Pycnonotus barbatus following Dowsett and Forbes-Watson (1993).
Forms a superspecies with Black-fronted Bulbul (Pycnonotus nigricans), Cape Bulbul (Pycnonotus capensis), White-spectacled Bulbul (Pycnonotus xanthopygos), White-eared Bulbul (Pycnonotus leucotis) and Himalayan Bulbul (Pycnonotus leucogenys), possibly including some other species. Hybridizes extensively with first two of these in narrow transition zones along at least part of boundaries between their respective distributions.
Subspecies tricolor, dodsoni and somaliensis sometimes treated as separate species but intermediates known in many cases. Subspecies gabonensis and inornatus intergrade in Nigeria.
Described subspecies nigeriae (southern Nigeria) and goodi (northern Cameroon) not satisfactorily distinguishable from former and latter respectively. A number of other described subspecies are too poorly marked to warrant recognition: thus, minor (upper White Nile and Bahr el Ghazal), fayi (Kenyan Highlands) and ngamii (L Ngami, in Botswana) merged with tricolor, micrus (south-eastern Kenya) and tenebrior (Eastern Cape, in South Africa) with layardi, and peasei (Kitunga, in Kenya) with dodsoni.
The following 10 subspecies are recognised:
barbatus (Desfontaine, 1789) - Morocco east to Tunisia.
inornatus (Fraser, 1843) - Southern Mauritania and Senegal east to northern Niger (Aí¯r), north-western and western Chad, northern Nigeria and northern Cameroon.
gabonensis Sharpe, 1871 - Central and southern Nigeria and central Cameroon south to Gabon and southern PRCongo.
tricolor (Hartlaub, 1862) - Central, eastern, south-eastern. Considered by some authors to be a distinct species, Dark-capped Bulbul (Pycnonotus tricolor).
arsinoe (Lichtenstein, MHK, 1823) - Egypt (Nile Valley), Sudan (south to southern Kordofan) and eastern Chad.
schoanus Neumann, 1905 - Highlands of Eritrea and Ethiopia (south to north-western Sidamo-Borama, east to Dire-Dawa and Harar) and extreme south-eastern Sudan.
somaliensis Reichenow, 1905 - Djibouti, north-western Somalia and north-eastern Ethiopia. Considered by some authors to be a distinct species, Somali Bulbul (Pycnonotus somaliensis).
spurius Reichenow, 1905 - Southern Ethiopia (southern Bale south to northern Sidamo-Borama). Considered by some authors to be a subspecies of Dark-capped Bulbul (Pycnonotus tricolor).
dodsoni Sharpe, 1895 - Northern Somalia and south-eastern Ethiopia to esst-central Kenya. Considered by some authors to be a distinct species, Dodson's Bulbul (Pycnonotus dodsoni).
layardi J. H. Gurney, Sr, 1879 - South-eastern Kenya (Taveta) and eastern Tanzania (including Zanzibar) south to eastern and southern Zambia, north-eastern Botswana and eastern South Africa. Considered by some authors to be a subspecies of Dark-capped Bulbul (Pycnonotus tricolor).