Blue-eared Barbet

The blue-eared barbet is a plump barbet 16–17 cm long, with a short neck, a large head and a short tail. It has green plumage with crimson spots on the cheeks, a verditer-blue throat and ear coverts, and a black band between throat and breast. The adult male has a black forehead. It is a resident breeder in the hills from eastern Nepal through north-east India to southern Thailand and Indochina (Wikipedia, general species account).

It inhabits shrublands and forests up to about 1,600 m and nests in tree cavities. The male's territorial call is a repeated loud ko-turr, and another call is a whistle known as the policeman whistle. The cached account gives no diet or breeding detail. SoIB 2023 rates it a Low conservation priority, a resident forest bird that eats fruit and nectar, with a Moderate range of about 99,700 km² and insufficient data on the long-term trend (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).