Rather uncommon breeding resident, locally occurs throughout the island, mainly in the rain forest areas though visit open country and forests in other areas. It lives as small flocks or as solitary birds and feeds entirely on flying insects. Brown-backed Needletail breeds from February to April (Harrison J. & Worfolk T., 2011) or August-September (Henry G.M, 1998 & Kotagama, S., Ratnavira, G. 2017) in a big, hollow forest tree. It enter by a hole near the top of the trunk and deposit three to five eggs, without any nest in the bottom of the cavity, often at ground level or even below (Base on Indian observations and so far no nest has been described from Sri Lanka).
