Laura Erickson's For the Birds

This beautiful bird, native to tropical Asia, has been a popular cage bird, and escaped birds became established in Florida, California, and Hawaii. A carrier of the parasites causing avian malaria, it’s one of many exotic species that are implicated in the steady losses and extinctions of native Hawaiian birds. And Brazilian pepper seeds germinate more easily after going through a bulbul’s gut, implicating this bird in the spread of this horribly invasive exotic plant. Bulbuls eat fruits and flying insects, rather in the manner of waxwings.