Sri Lanka Green-Pigeon

A typical pitta: plump, short-tailed, long-legged, and primarily terrestrial (sometimes perches up to call). Bright green above with electric blue shoulder patch and rump and black head with conspicuous pale brow. Underside golden-buff with black and bright red on the belly. Plumage varies geographically, with forms varying in eyebrow, throat color (white or black), and extent of red and black on belly. Juvenile duller, with little blue in wing, an orange-tipped bill, and a pinkish belly. Inhabits woodland, forest, scrub, and plantations in lowlands and hills; some populations migratory. Sometimes arboreal when calling. Voice varies throughout range; generally a variation on “wit-wit-deer” or “werwer-dew!”

Rather large, subtly attractive thrush with blue-gray head, dark chestnut-brown back, gray rump, and variable peachy-buff wash on spotted breast. Breeds in forested habitats, often favoring wooded areas adjacent to more open foraging grounds; in winter, found mainly in open woodland, farmland with hedges, orchards, and parkland. Often breeds colonially and sometimes retains social habits on wintering grounds, mixing with Redwings and other thrushes in fields or in fruiting trees. Song is relatively unlovely for a thrush, a series of scratchy and garbled phrases. Call is a dry and powerful “chakchak”, rather like an old camera.

A fairly large, short-tailed bird of mid-mountane forest canopy in the Foja Mountains. Male is mainly black with white flanks, bronzy-scaled chest and 6 antennalike feathers projecting from the back of the head. Note the blue eye. The female is dull brown above with rufous in the wing, strongly-barred underparts and pale bands above and below the eye. The male dances at a terrestrial display court. There are no other similar birds-of-paradise that co-occur. Vocalizations include loud rasps, rattles or a single or double-note squeak “wi-dik!”.