Sri Lanka Orange-billed babbler is a resident breeding bird endemic to Sri Lanka.
25 cm
These birds are plain reddish/orange brown below, and have a slightly darker shade above. The crown and nape are grey, and the bill is orange.
These birds make numerous calls that are the key stimuli for “flock gathering, flock attachment and cohesion”, “alarm” and “food indication”. They are all small variations of a chatter. A noisy bird , continual chattering, squeaking and chirping.
August – September. Nest – open, a shallow cup made with twigs, with the inside padded with leaves on a frock of a sapling. Clutch 2-3. Eggs shiny greenish blue, measuring 24×18 mm.
Sri Lanka Orange-billed babbler is the nuclear species of the mixed feeding flocks in the wet zone forests such as Sinharaja Forest Reserve and Makandawa Forest Reserve in Kitulgala. You will be able to spot this bird mainly in low country wet zone and hill zone forests. Mainly these birds are confined to undisturbed forest patches in Wet Zone.
The orange-billed babbler lives in flocks of seven to ten or more. It is a noisy bird, and the presence of a flock may generally be known at some distance by the continual chattering, squeaking and chirping produced by its members. It feeds mainly on insects, but also eats jungle berries.
Source – Birds of Sri Lanka – An illustrated guide by Sarath Kotagama & Gamini Ratnaweera -2017
