- Pitta sordida
Identification
16 - 19cm, a rather small pitta, variable.
Male
- Mainly green plumage
- Black head, some subspecies with chestnut crown (e.g., cucullata)
- Red vent
- Red/black lower belly is variable by subspecies
- Bluish shoulder patch
- Variable amount of white in wing visible when flying
Female
- Slightly duller and more olive-green than male
- Less white in wing
Juveniles have a scaly dark brown crown, dull brown upperparts with large white spots on wing-coverts, whitish lower throat with blackish chin and pinkish belly and vent.
Distribution
From northern India to the Philippines and to Southeast Asia, Greater Sundas and Indonesia east to Sangihe Island.
The commonest Pitta in most of its range.
Recorded as vagrant in Taiwan.
Taxonomy
May form a superspecies with Superb Pitta and Ivory-breasted Pitta, sometimes including Azure-breasted Pitta.
Western Hooded Pitta, Nicobar Hooded Pitta, Minahasa Hooded Pitta, Eastern Hooded Pitta, and Biak Hooded Pitta were all formerly considered a single species with the name Hooded Pitta.
Subspecies
Clements recognizes these subspecies[1]:
- P. s. cucullata breeds from Himalayan foothills of northern India east to southern China (Yunnan), northern Myanmar and Indochina, south to Bangladesh, Thailand, and northwestern peninsular Malaysia; winters to southern peninsula Malaysia, Sumatra, and Java
- P. s. mulleri on Sumatra, Borneo and Java and the western Sulu Islands
- P. s. bangkana on Bangka and Belitung islands (off Sumatra)
- P. s. sordida on the Philippine Islands (except Palawan group)
- P. s. palawensis on the western Philippines (Palawan, Culion, Balabac, Calauit and Busuanga)
- P. s. sanghirana on Sangihe Island (northeast of Sulawesi)
Subspecies mulleri have sometimes erroneously been written muelleri.
Habitat
Wide range of habitat, forest, mangroves and scrub.
Up to 2000m in India.
Behaviour
Feeds on insects, larvae, earthworms and snails. Forages on the forest floor among dead leaves.
Breeding season divers through range, April to August in India, May to October in southeast Asia, February to June in Sulawesi and December to June in New Guinea. The nest is a flattened dome made of twigs, dead leaves, plant fibres, rootlets and moss. Lays 2 - 5 eggs.
In most of its range sedentary, cucullata mostly migratory.
References
- Clements, J. F., P. C. Rasmussen, T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, A. Spencer, S. M. Billerman, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2023. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2023. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
- Gill, F, D Donsker, and P Rasmussen (Eds). 2023. IOC World Bird List (v 13.2). Doi 10.14344/IOC.ML.13.2. http://www.worldbirdnames.org/
- Dickinson, EC, ed. 2003. The Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World. 3rd ed., with updates to October 2008 (Corrigenda 8). Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0691117010
- Del Hoyo, J, A Elliot, and D Christie, eds. 2003. Handbook of the Birds of the World. Volume 8: Broadbills to Tapaculos. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions. ISBN 978-8487334504
- Kirwan, G. M. and J. Erritzoe (2023). Western Hooded Pitta (Pitta sordida), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (B. K. Keeney, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.wehpit1.01
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Western Hooded Pitta. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 12 October 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Western_Hooded_Pitta
External Links
GSearch checked for 2020 platform.1
