Blue-winged Pitta Pitta moluccensis 藍翅八色鶇
Category I. Accidental in spring, occurs in dense vegetation.
IDENTIFICATION
May 2009, Shenzhen, China. Michelle and Peter Wong.
18-20 cm. Broad black mask, warm brown central crown, long buff supercilium and white throat. Green upperparts with extensive blue wing covert patch that includes median and greater coverts. In flight, black outer part of wing has large white patch. Compared to Fairy Pitta the blue and white wing patches are larger, the underparts are much more richly coloured and there is obvious black above the eye.
VOCALISATIONS
The song, which has been heard in HK, is a repeated loud pair of double notes: ‘chu-wu chu-wu’. Compared to Fairy Pitta it sounds slightly more strident, has a less whistled quality and a more hurried delivery of each pair of elements. The second element in each pair is louder, longer and slightly higher in pitch, and both individually rise and then fall in pitch.
DISTRIBUTION & HABITAT PREFERENCE
Has occurred in dense vegetation on islands.
OCCURRENCE
1989: one on 4 May on Cheung Chau (Williams 1991).
2008: one on Po Toi on 17 and 18 April, and 1 and 4 May.
2009: one on Po Toi from 28 April to 6 May.
BEHAVIOUR
Generally shy and retiring.
RANGE & SYSTEMATICS
Monotypic. South and east Myanmar and southwest China through Thailand to Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and northern peninsula Malaysia; winters in southern Malaysia, Sumatra and Borneo (Erritzoe 2020). In China it breeds in southern Yunnan, but there are records of presumed overshoot migrants in Shanghai, Guangdong (Shenzhen), Guangxi, Hainan and Taiwan (Liu and Chen 2020), and also in South Korea (Birds Korea 2014).
CONSERVATION STATUS
IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend decreasing.
Birds Korea (2014). The Birds Korea Checklist for the Republic of Korea: 2014. Available at http://www.birdskorea.org/Birds/Checklist/Downloads/Birds-Korea-Checklist-April-2014-engl.pdf
Erritzoe, J. (2020). Blue-winged Pitta (Pitta moluccensis), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.blwpit1.01
Liu, Y. and Y. H. Chen (eds) (2020). The CNG Field Guide to the Birds of China (in Chinese). Hunan Science and Technology Publication House.
Williams, M. D. 1991. Blue-winged Pitta on Cheung Chau: a first record for Hong Kong. Hong Kong Bird Report 1990: 119-120.
