Blue-throated Barbet

The blue-throated barbet is a stocky green Asian barbet about the size of a myna, 19–22 cm long, with a short tail and lighter yellow-green underparts. The head and neck are distinctive, with a bright red forehead, a black stripe across the crown, a red rear crown, a blue throat and red patches on the sides of the neck at the base of the blue. The sexes are similar and share domestic duties, including building nests, incubation and raising the young (Wikipedia, general species account).

It is a non-migratory, arboreal resident breeder in the lower Himalaya from north-eastern Pakistan through northern and north-eastern India and in the hills of Southeast Asia, in lowland and montane forest at 200–2,000 m, frequenting fruiting trees, especially figs. Its green colour makes it hard to see in the canopy, but it calls frequently through the day, with notes like took-a-rook and pu-ku-ruk repeated 90–105 times a minute. SoIB 2023 rates it a Low conservation priority, a resident of forest and plantation with a Large range of about 372,000 km² (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).