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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jonathan Williams" data-source="post: 2181890" data-attributes="member: 45814">I have seen a paltry 7 species.  In chronological order:1.  Hooded Pitta on my first visit to Asia at Taman Negara in Malaysia.  I was walking up an incline that levelled out to a small plateau at the top, as my eyes got level with the plateau I could see the top of the head of a bird bouncing along the trail.  I knew instantly it would be a Pitta but nothing prepared me for the vision of green and electric blue that met my eyes.  After I had watched it for about 20 seconds I heard one of my friends creeping up behind me, I gestured at him to creep more quietly, he popped his head over the ridge, lifted his bins and uttered a loud, involuntary "f*cking hell" that startled the bird into disappearing.2.  Garnett Pitta on the same morning as above and further down the same trail, I turned a corner to find this little sapphire on the trail in front of me.  I instantly froze, praying it would not move.  It looked me up and down for a second or two before bouncing off leisurely down the trail and into the undergrowth.  2 seconds later a Lesser Mouse Deer appeared on the trail, followed by a Malaysian Peacock Pheasant.  A rustling in the undergrowth proved to be a Large Wren Babbler.  A good morning all round!!!3.  Banded Pitta.  The second best bird I have ever seen, and yes, number 1 is a different Pitta sp.  We heard from some Canadian birders staying at Taman that there was a male on the Swamp Loop Trail so 3 of us headed there for dawn the next morning, 2 of us went clockwise, 1 anti-clockwise.  After a few tens of metres myself and my friend heard an explosive POW call in the undergrowth.  We gave one quick blast of tape and instantly got a response.  It was either the Pitta or our anti clockwise friend on the opposite side of the trail!!  Whatever it was, it was moving towards us.  After a few seconds of scanning, I (unusually for me) was the first to pick up on the bird as it bounced across the forest floor, I whispered to my friend that I had it and that he had absolutely f*cking GOT to see this!!  After a few more tense seconds, it hopped out right into the open area in front of us.  A really stunning creature, with the supercillium the best feature for me.  It starts out yellow above the bill and then becomes gradually an almost impossibly bright orange.  I have subseqently seen the same race at Way Kambas in Sumatra, where we happened to arrive as they were showing incredibly well.  We had 2 males posturing, calling and eventually fighting on the edges of the respective territories and I was forced to tear my eyes away from a male that I had whistled in as a tick in the form of a Trogon sp that I can't remember appeared above it.  On my second visit to Way Kambas 6 years later, our entire party struggled to just about see one!  I have also seen the birds on Java and Bali but these are of a different race, all blue and yellow and not as shy when we were there.  In fact, we must have seen about 10 in one afternoon, and even had one from the minibus that was taking us on a twitch to Baluran in eastern Java to see Green Peafowl.  That was another good morning!!!4.  Blue-winged Pitta.  On my last evening in Taman, we flushed a Hooded Pitta off the trail as we walked back in the gloom to our hostel.  Only one of us saw it well and he was happy to have seen a Hooded after missing my bird of a day or two previously.  A few steps later, he asked if my Hooded had a pale super.  It did not.  Clearly we had best turn round and make sure of what we had just flushed!  Amazingly when we went back, the Pitta was back on the trail and indeed it was not a Hooded, it was a Blue-winged and was performing well, shining in the twilight.5.  Bar-bellied Pitta.  Seen from the road at Cuc Phuong in Vietnam.  I was very happy with my views from a day previously of a pair showing well, but was not prepared for the show that the same male put on 24 hours later as he fed on the road for a full 10 minutes.  He finally disappeared back into the jungle only to reappear on the road as we rounded the bend to give us another 5 minutes of hopping about in the open.  None of us were complaining and felt like giving him a round of applause after the performance of a lifetime.  Right up there in the top 5 birds I have ever seen.6.  Schneider's Pitta.  Quite possibly the best moment of my life and a testament to finely tuned fieldcraft skills.  I'm lying.  As is so often the case, a testament to blind luck and falling asleep on a log.  We had heard many nighmare horror stories about Gunung Kerinci on Sumatra, with most birders leaving in despair after a week spent silently creeping along the trails without even a sniff of the increasingly scarce Pitta there, never mind any of the other Sumatran endemics.  I got extremely lucky at the end of my first day there.  The adrenilin that had kept me on my feet for the previous 10 hours had just about run out and I crashed down on a fallen tree that crossed the trail just a couple of hundred metres in from the forest edge.  It seemed like a good stake out point as there was a good 30 metres of straight trail and I had the idea to just sit there and hope something hopped out.  As it turned out I lasted only a few minutes before my eyes closed for a split second and I awoke with a start wondering where the hell I was.  The first thing I heard in my confused and shocked state was a loud POW ERRRRRRRR WHA eminating from my right.  I thought I was still asleep and hearing things until what was evidently a very close Pitta called again.  I started shaking knowing that this would probably be my only chance.  I had saved the calls of some key species onto my phone so I silently wrestled it out of my pocket and fired off one Pitta call.  Half a second later and a flash of blue signals the appearance of the undisputed best bird I have ever seen, and also a bit of a brute as Pittas go.  I have just enough time to to raise my bins and focus to see a stocky irridescent blue Pitta with a bright orange head eyeballing me through the foliage for a few precious seconds.  He takes very little time to realise that I am evidently not the rival male he thought I was, and like that, he is gone and I will never see another one.  He does though continue to call non stop for the next half hour as the light fades.  I was ultra happy to be granted a 5 second audience, but the next morning my friend nearly trips over the same male on the trail and watches for 30 seconds as he hops slowly down a small side trail before disappearing.  The other two members of our party then searched fruitlessly for another 5 days without seeing one and my male is never heard from again.7.  Last but not least is Graceful Pitta, another endemic of Sumatra's montane regions.  We had GPS co-ordinates for a favoured gully.  4 of us crept in and waited ready to try to entice a bird in when we noticed what appeared to be a small red mouse scrabbling about on the bank directly opposite us.  Thankfully it was no mouse but was in fact a male Graceful Pitta that then proceeded to hop around the gully in full view for over 5 minutes.  Again, just to show the contrary nature of these birds, another party took our advice and after being assured they would have no problem, spent the best part of 2 days sitting there listening to the same male whistling and totally refusing to play ball and show himself even for the briefest of seconds.As ever with this family, where there are tales of glory and unforgettable highs, there are also tales of agony and never to be forgotten ifs, buts and maybes.  The worst for me was in Vietnam on the Water Tank Trail at Tam Dao.  It was mid afternoon and two of us were walking back towards the hotel when I heard a call not disimilar to Rusty-naped Pitta, a call I knew well from unsuccessful trawling in Malaysia.  The short whistle was very easy to imitate and sure enough, the bird, whatever it was, started to respond and act in a very Pitta like manner by circling us and calling regularly.  We reasoned that as we were stood on a straight trail with visibility of 20 metres either side of us that the bird would have to cross the trail at some point if it continued to circle us.  The reasoning was sound and the bird did indeed circle us 6 times in total.  This meant that it crossed the trail a total of 12 times either side of us.  Each time it approached the trail we fixed our eyes on it, not even daring to blink and each time it made it across and started calling on the other side without us seeing it.  I still to this day have no idea how it made it across, but this review, taken from 10000 birds, of the wonderful Jewel Hunter (the story of how Chris Goodie managed to see all 32 species in one year) sums up the whole family for me and explains how that Blue-naped Pitta stayed undetected."as a group they are not only distributed across some of the most remote places on the planet but they are masters of illusion, time-shifters able to dematerialise at will, move through thickets so thick that nothing with more than one cell should be able to pass from one side to the other…they are the ghosts of the forest floor, stunningly beautiful but almost impossible to see". I will also have nightmares forever about just what I spent 10 minutes whistling to on the River Trail at Taman Negara......  not far from the swimming area, a known haunt 2 weeks before our visit of the daddy of them all, Giant Pitta, a bird with a low, mournful whistle.  It was my first Pitta based foreign trip and I just decided it could not possibly be one and walked off with it still calling.I might never get the chance to see another Pitta in my lifetime but the less than half an hour of my life for which they granted me an audience will remain with me forever.</blockquote>

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