I had organised a couple of days birding with
George Swann from Broome following the sightings of the Eurasian Curlew at 80
Mile Beach.
We were out birding in the Roebuck Bay area on
Friday, 14th December 2007, when the news came through that a Blue-winged Pitta
had been seen in Derby. This would be a very rare sighting for Australia.
We decided to change our plans for the Saturday
and travelled through to Derby in the early hours of the morning. We met up with Nathan Waugh,
who had travelled through the night from a mine site down south, and arrived in
Derby at 6:30 am.
We then had very good views of the bird over
the next four to five hours and managed to get some good photos. We were joined
by a number of local birders and there was a lot of debate about whether it was
a Blue-winged or Fairy Pitta. It was agreed after consulting Craig Robson's
Birds of SE Asia, plus photos from the Oriental Bird Club, that it was in fact
a Fairy Pitta (Pitta Nympha).
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| Fairy Pitta (Pitta Nympha) |
The points in favour of the Fairy Pitta were:
1. The distinctive crown markings - narrow dark
black stripe on top with rufous on either side, and then the pale creamy
supercillium.
2. The pale cream supercillium runs through the
top of the eye.
3. The blue markings on the wing are less prominant than
for the Blue-winged Pitta.
4. The tail has a very thin blue marking on the
end of the feather tips, whereas the Blue-winged has an extensive blue band.
5. In flight the extent of the white patches in
the wing were a lot less than that for the Blue-winged Pitta - see poor photo
of bird with wings opened
6. At rest there was no evidence of white on
the primary wing feathers.
7. The chest is a lot lighter in colour
compared with photos of the Blue-winged which shows it as quite buff
8. The option of Mangrove Pitta was also considered but this
bird lacks the distinctive crown
It's a great find and well done on John's son
who first saw the bird and reported it.
The Fairy Pitta is a small passerine bird. It
breeds in north-east Asia in Japan, South Korea, mainland China and Taiwan,
migrant in Thailand and winters mainly on the island of Borneo in east
Malaysia, Brunei and Kalimantan in Indonesia. It eats worms, spiders, insects,
slugs, and snails. The Fairy Pitta forms a superspecies with the Indian Pitta
(P. brachyura), Mangrove Pitta (P. megarhyncha) and Blue-winged Pitta (P.
moluccensis).
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| View of head markings from the back |
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| Poor view of the open wings showing white wing patches |
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