© 2024 Hawaiʻi Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Manu Minute: The pesky red-vented bulbul

Ways To Subscribe
The red-vented bulbul gets its name from the tuft of crimson feathers under its tail. It is also the only black bird on Oʻahu with a black crest on its head.
Ramesh Desai
/
Cornell (ML164088751)
The red-vented bulbul gets its name from the tuft of crimson feathers under its tail. It is also the only black bird on Oʻahu with a black crest on its head.

Curious about that black-crested bird you've seen flitting around your Oʻahu neighborhood? That's probably a red-vented bulbul.

These medium-sized birds were introduced to Oʻahu in the 1950s, likely due to a cage release.

Since then, they've bul-bul-bullied their way across the whole island, often chasing smaller birds out of their territories.

Red-vented bulbuls rank 78th on International Union for Conservation of Nature's list of the 100 worst invasive species worldwide. They clock in just above the American bullfrog and the black rat (also known as Rattus rattus, if you're feeling fancy).

Bulbuls' bad reputation is largely due to their sweet tooth. They'll eat guava, lychee, mango, papaya, and other fruits with abandon, resulting in significant losses for agricultural producers. They especially like orchid buds. The Oʻahu orchid industry reports annual losses of up to $300,000 due to bulbuls.

For now, the bulbul population is contained to Oʻahu, but there have been sporadic sightings on Maui and Hawaiʻi Island in the past few years. Check with your local invasive species committee about how to report a bulbul sighting on a neighbor island.

AMTJ_Manu Minute_Red-vented bulbul Spectrogram Video.mp4

Audio credit: Robert Shallenberger, Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (ML6001

Patrick Hart is the host of HPR's Manu Minute. He runs the Listening Observatory for Hawaiian Ecosystems (LOHE) Lab at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo.
Ann Tanimoto-Johnson is the Lab Manager & Research Technician in the Hart Lab/Listening Observatory for Hawaiian Ecosystems (LOHE) Bioacoustics Lab. She researches the ecology, bioacoustics, and conservation of our native Hawaiian forests, birds, and bats.
Savannah Harriman-Pote is the energy and climate change reporter. She is also the lead producer of HPR's "This Is Our Hawaiʻi" podcast. Contact her at sharrimanpote@hawaiipublicradio.org.
More Episodes