Rainbow Pitta Bird Description

Introduction

This bird is called the Rainbow Pitta and lives in the northern area of WA. It is normally a very shy bird and has much in common with the Noisy pitta. During the dry season they are almost invisible in the monsoon forest thickets of the Northern territory's top end.

With the first rise of humidity at the onset of the monsoon season they become very active. The monsoon forest becomes alive with male rainbow pitta's calling loudly, proclaiming their territories. Now they can be relatively easily seen hoping about on the forest floor.

This assignment will describe the Rainbow Pitta along with the noises that the Rainbow Pitta makes, their environment, how they hunt and what their diet consist of and their behaviour and reproduction. The author will then conclude that the Rainbow Pitta species is one of the least endangered of the bird species in Australia.

Description

Their length is 160 to 180mm. They have a red/brown stripe over each eye and a tail black tipped with green. They also have sky blue shoulders grading to covalt and their throat & upper belly are velvet black. They have black wings, but when the wings are open they are white, and they have dark brown eyes along with a black bill. Their lower belly is scarlet with a light brown tan and their feet are gray /brown to dark grey.

Sound & noise

The rainbow Pitta's voice sounds like want/a/whip and has loud, clear two note whistles. As I said before it has a lot in common with the Noisy Pitta. Rainbow Pitta's common call is a double whistle uttered during breeding season. We can also hear other types of calls, such as trisyllabic call and single note "ptu".

Warning call includes vocalisations resembling Buteo's calls, but weaker. During aggressive behaviour, Rainbow Pitta utters purring-like sounds. Alarm call is a sharp "Keow".

Environment

The Rainbow Pitta mainly lives on the ground, however they roost in trees at night.

They live in the northern part of WA and have also been seen in the Northern Territory. Apparently some live in the top end of the Northern Territory in a place called the Monsoon forest.

They like to make their home in patches of rainforest, woodlands along water courses, mangroves, woodlands in gorges and eucalypt riparian (along or near the bank of a river) forests.

Hunting & Diet

The Rainbow Pitta has a varied diet, feeding on earth worms and other invertebrates. It also likes to eat caterpillars, ants, bugs, dipterans' (two winged insects), larvae, spiders, butterflies, beetle larvae, snails, small frogs and fruits. They forage for food under