Scientific name: Pycnonotus tricolor
It occurs across much of sub-Saharan Africa, from Chad to Ethiopia south to southern Africa. Here it is common to abundant across Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Northern Botswana, the Caprivi Strip, the Limpopo Province, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.
It can occupy any habitat with adequate supply of fruiting trees and bushes, absent only from dense woodland or grassland with few bushes.
The dark-capped bulbul is mostly greyish brown above and whitish brown below, with a distinctive dark head and pointy crest on top of the head. The back of the head merges into the brown of the back, and the chin is also blackish. The underparts are grey-brown apart from white around the vent.
It eats a range of fruit, petals, nectar, seeds and arthropods, foraging in groups and using a wide variety of techniques. These include plucking fruit from trees and bushes, probing the flowers of Aloe for nectar, hawking flying insects, hunting for spiders on buildings and picking up fallen fruit.
