Barbet
Barbets are a group of medium sized, chunky, generally colorful, frugivorous, hole-nesting near-passerines, that are popular targets for anyone birding in the tropics. They occur in three biogeographic regions; the Neotropic, Afrotropic and Indo-Malaya ecozones, basically tropical South and Central America, Africa south of the Sahara and tropical Asia. Originally they were all placed in the family Capitonidae, but over time taxonomists have determined that actual relationships between these barbets are far more complex. In the Neotropics the barbets have been placed into two families, the original Capitonidae (New World Barbets) with 14 species and Semnornithidae (Toucan Barbets) with 2 species (Toucan and Prong-billed Barbet). These American barbets are now considered more closely related to Toucans than they are to the barbets of other continents. In Asia, their 30 barbet species are placed into their own family Megalaimidae, and finally in Africa, we have 42 species in the family Lybiidae.
In Africa, barbets occur throughout the continent from the tip of the Cape Peninsula to the fringes of the Sahara desert. They range in size from the tiny 3.5 inch Tinkerbirds to the hulking 10+ inch Yellow-billed Barbet. Some are incredibly colorful, the vibrant Red-and-yellow Barbet comes to mind, while others are rather plain, and in fact can even be described as ugly, such as the Naked-faced Barbet. Some are obvious and largely terrestrial such as D’Arnaud’s Barbet and others are cryptic and a challenge to spot as they call from hidden perches in the canopy of the tallest rainforest giants.
African barbets are classified in severel quite distinctive genera:
Pogoniulus are the smallest, and the 10 species in this genus are now called Tinkerbirds due to their incessant tooting calls sounding like a miniature tinsmith or tinker hammering away. They are generally cryptic species and despite frequent extended bouts of calling, their ventriloquial skills make them tricky to locate. Most species live in the rainforest zone – notably the largest; Red-rumped and the plainest; Speckled which sounds like a Common Quail emanating from the rainforest canopy! Others, such as Yellow-fronted and Red-fronted extend into the savanna zone and are best located by staking out a fruiting tree. White-chested Tinkerbird is one of Africa’s avian mysteries, known only from a single specimen collected in 1964 at Mayau in north-west Zambia, close to the borders of Angola and the DRC. This remote region of Cryptosepalum forests is little changed by human hands (somewhat of a rarity in these times of devastating habitat destruction) yet this species has not been relocated despite extensive searches by birders (including myself). This has led some ornithologists to consider the specimen a hybrid of two other tinkerbirds, time will undoubtedly tell! Interestingly this species was named Pogoniulus makawai after its discoverer, a local man named Jali Makawa, who was employed by ornithologist C.W. Benson to collect birds. It is seldom that indigenous people are honored in this way.
The Stactolaema barbets are generally a little more colorful than the Gymnobuccos. Anchieta’s and Whyte’s are restricted to the Miombo or Brachystegia woodlands of south-central Africa, White-eared to the forests along Africa’s eastern coastline and Green to scattered forests from south to east Africa. In South Africa Green Barbet occurs only in Ngoye Forest, a tiny forest patch in Zululand, and this form is often split off as Woodward’s Barbet. The next isolated populations are several thousand miles northwards in Malawi, northern Mozambique and the Rondo Plateau in southern Tanzania. Finally the most northern population ranges are found in coastal forests of northern Tanzania and Kenya. The reasons for this hugely fragmented population have yet to be fully unraveled.
The African barbets are the Trachyphonus tribe. These mostly yellow and red birds have repetitive, hard churring calls, hence their name that translates as ‘rough-voice”. The southern African version is Crested Barbet and supports a floppy black crest. Due to its rather random collection of white spots, red blotches, yellow and black, it as also known colloquially as “Fruit-salad”. From East Africa, Crested is replaced by Red-and-yellow, an unusual species that nests in termite mounds. Yellow-breasted occurs in the dry woodlands to the north of Red-and-yellow, stretching westwards along the fringes of the arid Sahel. The curious D’Arnaud’s Barbet is a social species of dry north-east Africa that has a quaint tail-wagging clockwork-like display. Finally Yellow-billed, the largest of all our barbets. It is an aberrant species that in my opinion should be in its own monotypic genus. It differs from the rest of its sister species by its great size, bare yellow facial skin, the fact that it lives in the rainforest zone where is keeps concealed in dense tangles or high canopy from whence it utters a deep booming hoot that is repeated almost endlessly, much to the frustration of birders who generally spend hours fruitlessly searching for this ventriloquist! When lucking into a good view, its dark plumage turns into purples, mauves and even pinks, a beautiful bird belying the fieldguides that usually depict it far too dull, unlike the attractive living version.