Bird news from Subhojit Chakladar and Marco Della Seta
A short trip to the ridge on the southern borders of an island in Yeosu to look for Fairy Pitta. This site was also visited last year on the 10th of June on a rainy day when several pittas were calling none of them could be seen. This time thanks to an early start and good weather, we were able to hear one very close to the start of the trail and had excellent views of a bird singing its heart out from a perch.
The supporting cast included flocks of Eastern Great Tits, Varied Tits, Long-tailed Tits, Pygmy Woodpecker, Eastern Crowned Warbler, Pale Thrush, Black-naped Oriole, Lesser Cuckoo and Tiger Shrike. Strangely, close to the start of the trail, we heard a distant call that resembled a Large Hawk Cuckoo (are there any mainland record of this species in ROK?) However, it was heard only briefly at dawn (~5:15am) and was not heard during the next 3.5 hours that we were on the trail.
Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker, Dendrocopos kizuki
Fairy Pitta, Pitta nympha
Fairy Pitta, Pitta nympha
Large Hawk Cuckoo are accidental in Korea, there has been a/some record/s. Also difficult to think of any other bird that has a call similar to it. Did you hear the full call or just the ‘purring whistles’? The full call is unique. They do call at night, early morning and late afternoon in Koh Samui, my only encounters with this bird.
Large Hawk Cuckoo sighting during May 2007 on Socheong island.
Large Hawk-Cuckoo is proving to be a perhaps regular overshoot migrant to offshore islands – with perhaps no records yet on the mainland? One type of call that can be quite similar to the intro notes of the species is given by Black-naped Oriole. Orioles have a pretty big vocabulary, and individuals seem to pick up or use phrases that they often repeat multiple times before betraying their real identity with a more obvious meowing or melodic series. Would be interested to know if this is considered to be mimicry or just variation that overlaps with other species, but there was a Black-naped Oriole on Baekryeong this spring that gave several Large Hawk-cuckoo type introductory notes; and there was even one in Busan that to my ears often called with a Fairy Pitta type swing. Hope this helps.