Colours of Wildlife - Crested Barbet
Created | Updated Nov 3, 2013
Crested Barbet
Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"
This time I bring you another bird I know very well, a Crested Barbet! This species, Trachyphonus vaillantii, is one of five (or, depending on classification, six) species in its genus. These are sometimes called terrestrial barbets; species from the arid northeast of Africa nest in holes in the ground, but the Crested barbet is much less terrestrial, nesting in trees – but it does come down to catch prey on the ground from time to time. They are considered to be rather distantly related to the other African barbets.
But most of you will probably not know what a barbet is! Barbets are birds related to woodpeckers. They also excavate their nests in trees, and like woodpeckers they have specialized feet with two toes pointing forward and two pointing back, which helps them clamber around in trees. They are not as highly specialized as woodpeckers, though. They have shorter, stouter bills and don't hammer their bills into wood like woodpeckers do, instead pecking and biting into the wood. They also don't clamber up and down tree trunks like woodpeckers, and don't have stiffened tail feathers to prop up their bodies. Lastly, they don't search for food in the wood and bark of trees like woodpeckers, instead they are mostly fruit eaters. But the Crested barbet and many others will also catch invertebrates.
There are currently four different families of barbets recognized, of which the African Barbets are one; the other three are the Asian Barbets, the Toucan-Barbets, and the South American Barbets. Toucans proper are close relatives of barbets.
Crested barbets are well-known and beloved in South Africa. Their long, trilling calls, reminiscent of alarm clocks, can be heard almost anytime, anywhere. They are bold, inquisitive, amusing and endearing birds, easily seen, often photographed. They will take fruit put out on bird tables, or come and eat whatever they can find in the garden – indeed they prey on snails and other garden pests and so perform a valuable service! They are large for barbets, the size of an average dove, and with striking coloration in black, white, yellow and orange. But they are usually rather scruffy looking, their body feathers often pointing in all directions and their crests rather scraggly and unkempt!
The barbet I painted here is an individual that sits beside a lake in the Kruger National Park. I think that it actually has been keeping that territory for many years. It is surprisingly tame; I took its photograph pointing the camera out of the car window; it was sitting just about a yard away and showed no fear at all. It was very fluffy as well as scruffy-looking, puffing out its body feathers. It probably learnt to get tidbits of food from the motorists, but we didn't feed it.
In South Africa, crested barbets have probably benefited from human activities. Since they adapt well to gardens, they've managed to extend their distribution into regions that were formerly grassland, as humans moved in and planted trees. They also extend up to south-central and Eastern Africa. The southern edge of the Orange Free State, and also the southern border of Kwazulu-Natal, is the farthest south that they occur. Their natural habitats are savannah, woodland and light forest, avoiding heavy, dense forest.
Apart from setting out fruit on bird tables, crested barbets can be attracted by providing suitable nesting places. The best thing over here is a dried Sisal stump! Actually this is a part of the huge inflorescence of the sisal plant, a species imported from the Americas for its fiber. It is in the agave family. After flowering the flower stem dries out and becomes rather woody, but soft. A section can be cut of this dry inflorescence and then tied up high in a tree. If the location is suitable, a pair of barbets will soon start excavating a hole in it! They are such compulsive excavators, though, that they might easily excavate their hole right through the bottom of the stump, or through the top, so a way to prevent them from ruining their own home is to nail the flat bottom or top of a tin can over the top and bottom of the sisal stump. It's good to have the stump angled slightly obliquely so that the barbets can dig their hole in its underside, so rain can't easily get in. Once they've chosen a nest site they'll defend the area aggressively, chasing off other barbets and hole-nesters, or even any other birds in general.
These barbets can breed any time of the year. They might try breeding several times each year. The female lays two to six eggs, spaced about a day apart. Incubation takes about two weeks, the chicks being naked, blind and helpless upon hatching. Both parents bring them food – insects only – and they fledge in about a month. Sometimes the barbets will raise not their own chicks, but that of a honeyguide! Honeyguides, like (some, not all) cuckoos, are nest-parasites; their chicks will actually kill the real chicks of their hosts, so a pair of barbets will then raise just a single honeyguide chick and none of their own children. The honeyguide chick, on fledging, will fly off and have nothing more to do with the barbets. But if the barbets rear their own chicks, these will stay with them for a long period post-fledging, only striking out on their own when ready to start their own families.
