Nicobar Bulbul

The Nicobar bulbul is a rather drab, nondescript bulbul about 20 cm long and without a crest. Its wings, back and tail are dull dusky green, the face is lighter and the throat and underside yellowish-white, and the most prominent feature is a sooty-brown cap reaching down to eye height. It is endemic to the Nicobar Islands, where it occurs only in the central group; a supposed 19th-century record from Pilo Milo in the southern group is generally dismissed. It has sometimes been placed in the genus Ixos (Wikipedia, general species account).

It produces chattering calls similar to those of the black bulbul. Only in some places was it still as common at the time of the account as it had been 100 years earlier. SoIB 2023 treats it as a Nicobar endemic and rates it a High conservation priority, an omnivore of island forest and plantation with a Very Restricted range of about 460 km² and insufficient data on trends (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).