“This Rusty-naped Pitta (Pitta oatesi deborah) is a tough bird to see and image (with my reluctance to flash birds and non-use of meal-worm feeding).
“My wife and I had 2 opportunities to see one today in very dark and dense jungle (ISO for images was 45,600).
1. Note the ‘intense’ blue rump and blue-green tail that is more descriptive of P. o. deborah. Only males have been described from my region.
2. I managed to record the classical calls that are described as ‘chiau whet‘ (Wells 2007). See below for sonogram and waveform.
3. Calls occurred at a rate of 16-17 per minute when counted from two recordings (Wells 2007 reports 6-8 times per minute); but they can occur in a slower frequency.”
Dato’ Dr Amar-Singh HSS
Amar-Singh HSS (Dato’ Dr)
Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia
29th May 2018
Location: 1,600-1,700m ASL, Cameron Highlands, Pahang, Malaysia
Habitat: Trail through primary jungle