• Species in family   20
• Species observed [DR]  2 (10%)
• Species photo'd [DR]  1

The Parrotbills are an obscure group of Old Warbler species, many of which specialize on reeds or bamboos and have modified parrot-like beaks to deal with these plants. Ninety percent (18 of 20) of the parrotbills are considered to belong the genus Paradoxornis and the center of their distribution is in China, Tibet, and the northern parts of southeast Asia (n. Burma and Laos especially). One of the largest and most impressive -- and also one of the rarest -- is the Black-breasted Parrotbill (left). I have an entire page on Black-breasted Parrotbill (with additional photos) in a growing "Endangered & Threatened Birds" section. Given its rarity and elusiveness, I felt exceptionally fortunate to photograph this species in Kaziranga National Park, India. This species specializes on Phragmites reeds in the floodplain of the Brahmaputra River; these are late succession reeds in seasonally flooded grasslands that exist only in ungrazed area. This is not that great of a photo by perhaps you can see the huge parrot-like bill as this towhee-sized bird faces the camera. The biggest bill is on the monotypic Great Parrotbill Conostoma oernodium which lives in bamboo forests of Nepal, Tibet & China.

The final parrotbill genera is Panurus, the Bearded Reedling (right & above; both photos) which is patchily distributed across the Palearctic from England to China. Like many of the smaller parrotbills in the genus Paradoxornis, Bearded Reedlings occur in small flocks. They are probably best known from a few local reedy marshes in southern or eastern England (John Marchant took the group shot in Norfolk; W. Ed Harper's fine individual portrait is of a banded population as you can see).

The two species of parrotbills shown on this page are the only ones I've seen so I have little to say about this group. Clearly they are specialized on bamboo or reeds and their bills are an adaptation to that environment. Many of the smaller-billed species in Paradoxornis move in mixed species flocks through the forests with babblers, warblers, and other species. Sibley & Monroe (1991), relying heavily on DNA-DNA hybridization evidence, consider the parrotbills simply specialized babblers and do not even assign them a "tribe" level within the Timalinae (i.e., they consider them less distinctive a babbler than the Wrentit Chamaea fasciata). This is not a new idea; Ali & Ripley (1971) considered them babblers and stuck them in the middle of their babbler list. Both the Birds of the Western Palearctic handbook series (Cramp 1993) and the Birds of Africa series (Fry et al. 2000) lumped parrotbills with babblers but then totally disagreed about  the rockfowl. BWP lumped them as well but BoA consider them a separate family [Picathartidae] not closely related at all. The entire babbler and allies assemblage needs clarification. Presumably for that reason, some recent authorities (e.g., Birdlife International 2000) retain their family status, apparently as much for convenience and tradition as any reason. This is apparently the position to be taken by the Handbook of the Birds of the World series that I am generally following for these pages.

Whatever the eventual outcome of family-level taxonomy, the parrotbills are a closely related group that should at least be its own subfamily Paradoxornithinae. They share similarities in plumage colors and pattern, bill, tail and leg morphology, and are indirect head scratchers (other babblers are direct head scratchers). And they are certainly odd and engaging birds to observe.

Photos: The Black-breasted Parrotbill Paradoxornis flavirostris was photographed in Kaziranga Nat'l Park, Assam, India, on 1 Apr 2001. John Marchant took the shot of a group of Bearded Reedling Panurus biarmicus at Titchwell, Norfolk, England, on 20 July 1980; the individual Bearded Reedling was taken by W. Ed Harper in England in May 2000. All photos © 2001 Don Roberson or John Marchant or W. Ed Harper, as attributed (used with permission); all rights reserved.

Bibliographic notes

There is no recent "family book" covering the Parrotbills. Information on the four endangered species is in Birdlife International (2000).

Literature cited:

Ali, S., and S. D. Ripley. 1971. Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan. Vol. 6. Oxford Univ. Press, Bombay & London.

Birdlife International. 2000. Threatened Birds of the World. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona, Spain.

Cramp, S., ed. 1993. Handbook of the Birds of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Vo. VII. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford.

Fry, C. H., and Keith, S., and E. Urban., eds. 2000. The Birds of Africa. Vol. VI. Academic Press, London.

Sibley, C. G., and J. E. Alquist. 1990. Phylogeny and Classification of Birds: A Study in Molecular Evolution. Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, CT.