This brownish African bird also visits orchards and gardens. It eats many kinds of fruit, and pairs or small groups call noisily.
Its plumage is mainly brownish.
Common Bulbuls may moult while also breeding. At a cocoa farm in Cameroon, researchers studied bird diet throughout one year by analysing DNA from fecal samples. Their main comparison included 19 samples from birds that were moulting but not breeding and 22 from birds that were neither moulting nor breeding.
The moulting birds had a higher overall richness of plant and arthropod food items than the non-moulting group. Detected plants included mango and citrus trees planted among the cocoa. The study links the bird’s feather replacement cycle with seasonal differences in the variety of foods recorded at this farm.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
At the Cameroon study farm, Common Bulbuls foraged among cocoa and intercropped mango and citrus trees. The authors suggest that mixed agroforestry containing a variety of trees can provide a wider range of foraging resources for birds.