Top 20 Most Common Bird in Sri Lanka

The red-vented Bulbul is considered a pest by gardeners as it eats fruits and vegetables and spreads seeds to non-native regions. Because of this, these bird is considered an invasive species in some countries. The red-vented Bulbul is loud and can become aggressive to other birds and even humans in their forest, shrubland, and urban habitats.

The spotted Dove is a medium-sized bird that is swift in flight. It prefers to live year-round in warm climates in suburban areas, especially in parks. Their nests are mostly made out of sticks and they like to dine on insects and seeds.

The common Myna is a large, stocky starling that prefers to live near humans in towns and suburban areas. It forages among tall grasses for grasshoppers; in fact, its scientific name, Acridotheres tristis, means "grasshopper hunter." The common Myna likes to maintain two roosts at the same time - both a temporary summer roost near the breeding site as well as a year-round roost where the female can sit and brood.

These birds have grey brown upperparts, grey throat and breast with some mottling, and a pale buff belly. The head and nape are grey. The Sri Lankan form T. a. taprobanus is drab pale grey. Nominate race of southern India has whitish crown and nape with a darker mantle. The rump is paler and the tail has a broad dark tip. Birds in the extreme south of India are very similar to the Sri Lankan subspecies with the colour of the crown and back being more grey. The eye is bluish white. The Indian form is more heavily streaked on the throat and breast. The Sri Lankan subspecies resembles the jungle babbler, Turdoides striatus, although that species does not occur on the island. Seven distinctive vocalizations have been noted in this species and this species has a higher pitched call than the jungle babbler. The jungle babbler has calls that have a harsher and nasal quality. The taxonomy of this species was confused in the past and confounded with the sympatric jungle babbler and the orange-billed babbler of Sri Lanka.

The common Tailorbird is famous for its nests, which are leaves that have been sewn together. Also known as Orthotomus sutorius, it is found across tropical regions in Asia and can be identified by its long, erect tail. The male and female take care of the chicks, and there have been recorded cases of a pair adopting chicks from another couple.

The Sri Lanka hanging parrot is a small, mainly green hanging parrot, only 13 cm long with a short tail. The adult has a red crown and rump. The nape and back have on orange tint. The chin and throat are pale blue. The beak is red and the irises are white. Immature birds lack the orange hue to the back, have a duller rump, and have only a hint of orange on the crown. They have a faint blue throat. They have orange beaks and brown irises.

The white-throated Kingfisher is a brightly colored bird with a distinctive white throat and blue wings. It inhabits rivers, lakes, and coastal areas, and feeds on a variety of prey such as fish, frogs, and insects. The kingfisher is known for its bold, dive-bombing hunting style, diving from a perch to catch prey in the water. During the breeding season, the White-throated Kingfisher is known for its loud, cackling call. This species is widely distributed across Asia.

Purple-rumped sunbirds are tiny at less than 10 cm long. They have medium-length thin down-curved bills and brush-tipped tubular tongues, both adaptations for nectar feeding. Purple-rumped sunbirds are sexually dimorphic. The males have a dark maroon upperside with a blue-green crown that glistens at some angles, bright green shoulder patch and violet/purple rump patch which is generally hidden under the wings. The underparts are whitish with dark throat, maroon breast band and purple/violet patch in the throat which is visible in some angles. The iris is generally reddish in color. In the Western Ghats, it can overlap in some areas with the crimson-backed sunbird but the male of that species has reddish upperparts, a broader breast band and generally darker eyes. The female has a white throat followed by yellowish breast. The upperside is olive or brownish. The uppertail coverts are black and a weak supercilium may be visible. The nominate subspecies from Sri Lanka has a more bluish violet throat whereas the Indian form flaviventris (two other proposed populations whistleri from Maddur in Karnataka and sola from Pondicherry are subsumed) has a more pinkish tinge. Their call is ptsiee ptsit, ptsiee ptsswit or a sharp twittering tityou, titou, trrrtit, tityou....

This drongo is black without any glossy feathers on the upperside and greyish on the throat and breast, while the belly and vent are entirely white in the Indian form which is the nominate subspecies. The fork of the tail is less deep than in the black drongo which is often seen in the same habitats. Young black drongo's can have a lot of white on the underside but it is usually scaly in appearance. The Sri Lankan forms insularis of the northern dry zone and leucopygialis of the southern wet zone have the white restricted to the vent. Birds that are less than a year old lack the white on the underside but are browner above and greyish below. Males have a very slightly shorter tail on average than females. The size of the birds varies clinally with northern birds larger. The extent of white on the underside also declines with size although there is a lot of local variation. The Sri Lankan forms leucopygialis and insularis are darker than the Indian form and there is some intergradation within the Sri Lankan forms. The species is believed to be closely related to Dicrurus leucophaeus but has not be confirmed with molecular sequence studies. Both the white-bellied drongo and the black drongo share a diploid chromosome number of 68.

This is a tiny bird, 8 cm long, and is one of the smallest birds occurring in most parts of southern India and Sri Lanka. The bird is plain brownish to olive green. The underside is buff olive and does not contrast greatly with the upperparts and not whitish as in the Nilgiri flowerpecker of the Western Ghats and Nilgiri hills nor is it streaked as in the thick-billed flowerpecker. The Nilgiri flowerpecker has a pale supercilium unlike this species which has no marking on the head. The Sri Lankan race ceylonense Babault, 1920 - is greyer and smaller than the nominate race of peninsular India. It has been considered one of the early flowerpeckers, originating in the Malay Peninsula, to colonize the Indian Subcontinent.

The green imperial pigeon is a large, plump pigeon, 45 centimetres (18 in) in length. Its back, wings and tail are metallic green. The head and underparts are white, apart from maroon undertail coverts. Sexes are similar. The bird's call is deep and resonant, and is often the first indication of the presence of this treetop species.

This species is 19 centimetres (7.5 in) long, including the long tail, which is usually held cocked upright when hopping on the ground. When they are singing a song the tail is normal like other birds. It is similar in shape to the smaller European robin, but is longer-tailed. The male has black upperparts, head and throat apart from a white shoulder patch. The underparts and the sides of the long tail are white. Females are greyish black above and greyish white. Young birds have scaly brown upperparts and head. It is the national bird of Bangladesh. The nominate race is found on the Indian subcontinent and the females of this race are the palest. The females of the Andaman Islands race andamanensis are darker, heavier-billed and shorter-tailed. The Sri Lankan race ceylonensis (formerly included with the peninsular Indian populations south of the Kaveri River) and southern nominate individuals have the females nearly identical to the males in shade. The eastern populations (Bhutan and Bangladesh) have more black on the tail and were formerly named erimelas. The populations in Burma and further south are named as the race musicus. A number of other races have been named across the range, including prosthopellus (Hong Kong), nesiotes, zacnecus, nesiarchus, masculus, pagiensis, javensis, problematicus, amoenus, adamsi, pluto, deuteronymus and mindanensis. However, many of these are not well-marked and the status of some of them is disputed. Some, like mindanensis, have now been usually recognized as full species (the Philippine magpie-robin). There is more geographic variation in the plumage of females than in that of the males. It is mostly seen close to the ground, hopping along branches or foraging in leaf-litter on the ground with a cocked tail. Males sing loudly from the top of trees or other high perches during the breeding season.

The house Crow is an intelligent bird that is near becoming a declared invasive species. The house Crow is very common in developed areas and can have a bold, aggressive personality. These birds have been known to damage and steal crops, affect local flora and fauna, create excessive noise, and carry diseases and parasites.

The male is striking, with the typical oriole black and yellow colouration. The plumage is predominantly yellow, with a solid black hood, and black also in the wings and tail centre. The female black-hooded oriole is a drabber bird with greenish underparts, but still has the black hood. Young birds are like the female, but have dark streaking on the underparts, and their hood is not solidly black, especially on the throat. The black head of this species is an obvious distinction from the Indian golden oriole, which is a summer visitor to northern India. Orioles can be shy, and even the male may be difficult to see in the dappled yellow and green leaves of the canopy. The black-hooded oriole's flight is somewhat like a thrush, strong and direct with some shallow dips over longer distances. While foraging the species uses foliage-gleening, wood-gleening, or sallying methods.

Loten's sunbirds are small, only 12–13 cm long. The long bill separates this from the syntopic purple sunbird. The wings are browner and the maroon breast band is visible on the male under good lighting conditions. The males have pectoral tufts of yellow mixed with crimson that are used in displays. The adult male is mainly glossy purple with a grey-brown belly. The female has yellow-grey upperparts and yellowish underparts, but lacks the purple's faint supercilium. The call is distinctive buzzy zwick zwick and they are also very active often bobbing their head while foraging. They long down-curved bills and brush-tipped tubular tongues, are adaptations to their nectar feeding. The bill lengths vary across populations with the longest bills are found on the east of Peninsular India and in Sri Lanka. The song of the male is a long repeated wue-wue-wue... with the last notes accelerated. The song has been likened to the call of the cinereous tit. The males may sing from the tops of bare trees or telegraph wires. The male in winter has an eclipse plumage with a yellowish underside resembling that of the female but having a broad central streak of dark metallic violet from the chin to the belly. The existence of an eclipse plumage in the adult male has been questioned by Rasmussen & Anderton (2005) due to the lack of specimens in evidence. Jerdon noted however that: A specimen in the Museum As. Soc., Calcutta, has the winter or currucaria plumage of the last, viz., a central glossy green stripe on the throat and breast, and a spot on the shoulders of the wings; otherwise as in the female. I do not recollect seeing the bird in this plumage in Malabar, where I had many opportunities of observing it, and rather think that it must have been a young bird.

The Asian palm swift (Cypsiurus balasiensis) is a small swift. It is very similar to the African palm swift, Cypsiurus parvus, and was formerly considered to be the same species. It is a common resident breeder in tropical Asia from India to the Philippines. The down and feather nest is glued to the underside of a palm leaf with saliva, which is also used to secure the usually two or three eggs. This is a bird of open country and cultivation, which is strongly associated with oil palms. This 13 cm long species is mainly pale brown in colour. It has long swept-back wings that resemble a crescent or a boomerang. The body is slender, and the tail is long and deeply forked, although it is usually held closed. The call is a loud shrill scream. Sexes are similar, and young birds differ from adults mainly in their shorter tails. Asian palm swift has very short legs which it uses only for clinging to vertical surfaces, since swifts never settle voluntarily on the ground. These swifts spend most of their lives in the air, living on the insects they catch in their beaks. Asian palm swifts often feed near the ground, and they drink on the wing.

The white-browed bulbul is about 20 cm (7.9 in) long, with a moderately long (8 centimetres or 3 inches) tail. It has olive-grey upperparts and whitish underparts. This species is identifiable by the white supercilium, white crescent below the eye, and dark eyestripe and moustachial stripe. The vent is yellowish and there is some yellow on the chin and moustache. The throat is however largely whitish unlike in the similar looking and sounding yellow-throated bulbul which is found in rockier habitats. Three or four hair-like filoplumes are present on the nape. Sexes are similar in plumage. It is usually detected by the burst of song that it produces from the top of a bush and often dives into the bush becoming difficult to see. The song is a rich, spluttering warble and the bird is more often heard than seen. P. l. insulae is slightly darker and has a shorter wing than the nominate race.

This is a large species of cuckoo. The head is black, upper mantle and underside are black glossed with purple. The back and wings are chestnut brown. There are no pale shaft streaks on the coverts. The eyes are ruby red. Juveniles are duller black with spots on the crown and there are whitish bars on the underside and tail. There are several geographic races and some of these populations are sometimes treated as full species.