A bird found among trees in Japanese woods and towns. A brown area behind the eye and across the cheek is a useful identifying feature.
Brown feathers extend from behind the eye across the cheek.
Some brown-eared bulbuls move in flocks during spring and autumn. Along Ishikawa’s coast, flocks head northeast in spring and southwest in autumn, often above coastal woodland. Parts of large flocks sometimes cross the water offshore.
Observations along the Kanazawa–Hakusan coastal forest covered 2004–2024. On 18 April 2024, observers counted 29,908 passing birds between 06:05 and 09:18. One flock exceeding 2,000 passed within about four minutes. A familiar bird could thus appear in an exceptional concentration during one morning.
Flights commonly passed about 5–15 metres above the trees, roughly 20–40 metres above ground. Even on busy days, passage varied greatly with time.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
An analysis published in 2022 compared breeding-distribution surveys from the 1990s and 2010s. From Kanto westward, bulbuls declined below 100 metres elevation but increased at 500–1,000 metres. The authors called for continued regional monitoring combining local bird counts and distribution surveys to track these differing changes.