Indian Pitta
Encyclopedia
The Indian Pitta is a medium-sized passerine
bird
. It breeds mainly in the sub-Himalayas
and winters in southern India
and Sri Lanka
. These birds are found in thick undergrowth and are often more easily detected by their calls. They however often crash into houses during the migratory season and their brilliant colouration makes them an object of curiosity and are often covered in newspaper stories.
It is more often heard than seen and has a distinctive loud two-note whistle wheeet-tieu or wieet-pyou or sometimes, a triple note hh-wit-wiyu. They have a habit of calling once or twice, often with neighbouring individuals joining in, at dawn or dusk leading to their common name of "Six-O-Clock" bird in Tamil. When calling the head is thrown back and the bill is pointed upwards.
Pittas are among the few Old World suboscine birds. The Indian Pitta is the basal member of a distinct clade that includes many of the Oriental species. It forms a superspecies
with the Fairy Pitta
(P. nympha), Mangrove Pitta
(P. megarhyncha) and Blue-winged Pitta
(P. moluccensis).
They feed on insects and other small invertebrates that are usually picked up from the ground or leaf litter. They have also been noted to take kitchen food scraps from the ground.
Avian malaria parasites have been noted in the species. Five out of thirteen birds in an ectoparasite survey were found to have the tick, Haemaphysalis spinigera.
Passerine
A passerine is a bird of the order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds, the passerines form one of the most diverse terrestrial vertebrate orders: with over 5,000 identified species, it has roughly...
bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
. It breeds mainly in the sub-Himalayas
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
and winters in southern India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
. These birds are found in thick undergrowth and are often more easily detected by their calls. They however often crash into houses during the migratory season and their brilliant colouration makes them an object of curiosity and are often covered in newspaper stories.
Description
The Indian Pitta is a small stubby-tailed bird that is mostly seen on the floor of forests or under dense undergrowth, foraging on insects in leaf litter. It has long, strong legs, a very short tail and stout bill, with a buff coloured crown stripe, black coronal stripes, a thick black eye stripe and white throat and neck. The upperparts are green, with a blue tail, the underparts buff, with bright red on the lower belly and vent. The bird normally hops on the ground to forage and has been known to get trapped in ground traps meant for small mammals. They roost in trees. It has been suggested that the width of the coronal stripe may differ in the sexes.It is more often heard than seen and has a distinctive loud two-note whistle wheeet-tieu or wieet-pyou or sometimes, a triple note hh-wit-wiyu. They have a habit of calling once or twice, often with neighbouring individuals joining in, at dawn or dusk leading to their common name of "Six-O-Clock" bird in Tamil. When calling the head is thrown back and the bill is pointed upwards.
Pittas are among the few Old World suboscine birds. The Indian Pitta is the basal member of a distinct clade that includes many of the Oriental species. It forms a superspecies
Superspecies
A superspecies is a group of at least two more or less distinctive species with approximately parapatric distributions. Not all species complexes, whether cryptices or ring species are superspecies, and vice versa, but many are...
with the Fairy Pitta
Fairy Pitta
The Fairy Pitta, Pitta nympha, 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....
(P. nympha), Mangrove Pitta
Mangrove Pitta
The Mangrove Pitta is a species of passerine bird in the Pittidae family native to Southeast Asia. It is part of a superspecies but has no recognized subspecies.- Taxonomy :...
(P. megarhyncha) and Blue-winged Pitta
Blue-winged Pitta
The Blue-winged Pitta is a passerine bird in the Pittidae family native to Australia and Southeast Asia. It forms a superspecies with three other pittas and has no subspecies.-Taxonomy:...
(P. moluccensis).
Etymology
The name Pitta comes from the Telugu word meaning "small bird". Local names in India are based on the colours and their behaviours such as the time of calling and these include Hindi: Naorang, Punjabi: Nauranga (=Nine colours), Bengali: Shumcha, Cachar: Dao bui yegashi, Gujarati: Navaranga or Hariyo; Tamil: Arumani kuruvi (=6-OClock bird), Kathu-alechi (=Wind blown), Thotta kalla; Telugu: Polanki pitta, Ponnangi pitta; Malayalam: Kavi; Kannada: Navaranga and Sinhalese: Avichchiya. The Sinhalese interpretation of its call is that the bird is complaining about the theft of its dress by a peacock: “Evith giya, evith giya, ayith kiyannam, methe budun buduwana vita ayith kiyannam,” which translates as: “Came and went! Came and went! I’ll still be complaining when the next Buddha comes! I’ll still be complaining!”Distribution
Indian Pittas breed mainly in the Himalayan foothills from northern Pakistan in the west (Margalla hills) to at least Nepal and possibly up to Sikkim in the east. They also breed in the hills of central India and in the Western Ghats south until Belgaum and Goa. They migrate to all parts of peninsular India and Sri Lanka in winter. Exhausted birds may turn up inside homes. They are rare in the dry parts of the country.Behaviour and ecology
These birds make seasonal movements associated with the rains and these have not been well studied. The breeding season is during the South-west Monsoon from June to August, with peaks in June in central India and July in northern India). The nest is a globular structure with a circular opening on one side built on the ground or on low branches. It is made up of dry leaves and grasses. The clutch is four to five eggs which are very glossy white and spherical with spots and speckles of deep maroon or purple.They feed on insects and other small invertebrates that are usually picked up from the ground or leaf litter. They have also been noted to take kitchen food scraps from the ground.
Avian malaria parasites have been noted in the species. Five out of thirteen birds in an ectoparasite survey were found to have the tick, Haemaphysalis spinigera.
Other sources
- Ingalhalikar,S (1977) Indian Pitta in captivity. Newsletter for BirdwatchersNewsletter for BirdwatchersNewsletter for Birdwatchers is an Indian periodical of ornithology and birdwatching founded in 1960 by Zafar Futehally, who edited it until 2003. It was initially mimeographed and distributed to a small number of subscribers each month. The editorial board in its early years included Salim Ali,...
. 17(7):8-9.
- Bolster,RC (1921) Breeding of the Indian Pitta. J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 28(1):284.