Malabar barbet of alates), ants and small caterpillars. In Kerala, the fruiting trees were limited mainly to "Ficus" species, especially "Ficus retusa", "Ficus gibbosa" and "Ficus tsiela". When feeding on small fruits, they tend to perch and peck rather than to swallow the fruit whole. In the non-breeding season, they join mixed-species foraging flocks. Malabar barbet The Malabar barbet ("Psilopogon malabaricus") is a small barbet found in the Western Ghats of India. It was formerly treated as a race of the crimson-fronted barbet ("Psilopogon rubricapillus"). It overlaps in some places with the range of the coppersmith barbet ("Psilopogon haemacephala") and has a
Malabar trogon "fakir's kafni" (robe). The Marathi name is "karna" while it is called "kakarne hakki" in Kannada In Kerala it is known as "theekakka" (literally "fire-crow"). In Sri Lanka, it is known as "loha wannichcha". Malabar trogons feed exclusively on insects and fruits have not been noted in their diet unlike in the New World trogons. Seeds have however been reported in the diet of Sri Lankan specimens. In the forests of Sri Lanka, they are often found in mixed-species foraging flocks where they may sometimes be subject to kleptoparasitism by drongos. A study in Kerala found that they foraged mainly