Tonk, tonk, tonk. If you have spent an afternoon in Tissamaharama, you have heard this bird. Now meet him properly.
The first time most visitors notice the coppersmith barbet they are trying to take a nap. The call is metronomic, monotonous and astonishingly loud for a bird the size of a tennis ball: tonk, tonk, tonk, like a coppersmith hammering a pot in the next garden over. Hence the name.
He is also one of the most beautifully painted birds in the dry zone — bright green back, yellow throat, red forecrown and a black mask that looks like badly applied stage makeup. You will usually find him at the very top of a bare branch, throwing his head back to call.
What he is doing up there
Barbets are frugivores. They are advertising a territory that contains a fruiting tree, hoping a female will fly past and approve. They nest in holes they excavate themselves in soft, dead wood — a small round entrance hole, a deep vertical chamber, both adults taking turns to incubate.
Once you learn to recognise the call you start to hear it everywhere, all over the south. It is the soundtrack to a Tissamaharama afternoon, along with the koel, the parakeets and the distant temple drumming.
