Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"

Back to birds! Here is one of our most special species, the African Pitta, Pitta angolensis, sometimes called the Angola Pitta. This is actually one of two pitta species in Africa, the other being the very similar green-breasted pitta, which is restricted to equatorial forests. The African is somewhat more widely distributed, from West Africa to Southern Africa. In South Africa, this bird has only been seen a handful of times, as vagrants from further up north. Western populations are resident, but eastern birds migrate from the DRC, Uganda and Kenya to breed in south-eastern Africa down to our neighbour countries of Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

Pittas are a small family of beautiful birds restricted to tropical regions of Africa, Asia and Australia. All of them are long-legged, dumpy-bodied birds that spend most of their time on the forest floor. They tend to be beautifully coloured and patterned, leading to their alternative name of Jewel-thrushes, although they're not thrushes at all. Pittas belong to a group of birds called the Suboscines. The suboscines are a small group within the huge group of birds called the songbirds. Songbirds constitute the largest present-day order of birds; they evolved fairly recently and have diversified rapidly and enormously. Within the songbirds, the suboscines are more 'basal', meaning they branched off at the base of the songbird family tree. This may be interpreted as them being more 'primitive', and indeed they lack some of the more intricate adaptations to for instance the syrinx or avian voice apparatus. They've generally been outcompeted and replaced by the oscines, but a substantial remnant of them are still hanging on. Most of the suboscines today live in the New World, in an impressive diversity: tyrant flycatchers, antbirds, ovenbirds, cotingas and manakins to name a few. In the Old World, the only suboscines remaining are the pittas, broadbills and asities of Madagascar. In Australia and New Zealand, the Lyrebirds, Scrubbirds and New Zealand Wrens – a very small group – also seem to fall outside of the oscines proper.

The African pitta species may be recent immigrants from Asia, being similar to some of those, and being similar to each other, meaning there's been little time for them to diverge. The birds that migrate to southern Africa have longer, more pointed wings than those of the sedentary populations. They're very pretty, coloured in vivid blues, greens, yellows and reds. The African pitta measures about 20 cm/8" in length, rather stocky in build with a short tail. It can be surprisingly hard to see. From behind, its green back blends in with the forest understory. When alarmed, it will fly up to a branch, where if it still feels threatened it will crouch low to hide itself. It forages in forests and thickets often in swampy areas or near rivers, with dense understory interspersed with small sub-canopy glades. It feeds mainly close to termite and ant nests, walking or hopping, every now and then flitting its tail. It stands motionless for up to 5 minutes at a time, just watching the leaf litter, then hopping up close if it sees potential prey. It may also, like a thrush, thrash leaves aside with its bill. Occasionally it stops and cocks its head to one side to inspect the soil. When it sights prey, it hops forward and snatches it in its stout bill. It feeds largely on ants and termites, but also on beetles, caterpillars, snails, earthworms and millipedes.

In Southern Africa, these pittas breed during the rainy summer, from November to March. They're likely monogamous, and males set up territories within which they display. They choose a horizontal twig or branch, on which they stand as they utter their deep, loud, liquid trilling calls, sometimes augmented by audible wing claps. These sounds carry far through the forest. Every now and then the bird will leap up from its perch, opening its wings to show their striking pattern, and 'parachuting' down to the twig again. All the time it fluffs up its breast and belly feathers to draw attention to the vivid red. Although they're mainly ground birds, their nests are mostly built at a height of 2 to 8 m/7' to 27' up in a thorny tree. The nest is an untidy-looking ball of twigs and leaves, with an entrance in the side and a central chamber lined with fine vegetable matter. There is a shelf projecting beside the entrance, on which the bird perches before going in. The clutch is one to four eggs. We know very little about the incubation and fledging times.

We're also not quite sure yet about how pittas move around. Even though the west African population appears to be sedentary, there may still be local movements of the pittas among them. Eastern pittas undertake long migrations, during which they cross atypical habitats. They are sometimes found in suburbs or cities, stunned from collisions with walls or windows. The ones that turn up in South Africa from time to time are stragglers who somehow got lost. It might be that the air movements of tropical storm fronts push them beyond their target destinations, especially at night.

The African pitta is widespread but rare. Its survival depends on the preservation of forests both in its breeding and non-breeding ranges.

Willem

04.03.24 Front Page

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