Black-faced Pitta
Other common names: Masked/Solomons Pitta
Taxonomy: Pitta anerythra Rothschild, 1901, Santa Isabel, Solomon Islands.
Typical pitta with prominent sky-blue wing-coverts. Bright green upperparts, warm buff underparts.
Black mask encircles face and variably across forehead. Similar spp. No other pitta is known from the range but vagrant Hooded Pitta P. sordida and Noisy Pitta P. versicolor are possible.
Vulnerable
Typical pitta with prominent sky-blue wing-coverts. Bright green upperparts, warm buff underparts.
Black mask encircles face and variably across forehead. Similar spp. No other pitta is known from the range but vagrant Hooded Pitta P. sordida and Noisy Pitta P. versicolor are possible.
VOICE: Single or double rasping tooyiii. Hints very wary. Calls from high perches.
15 cm
Possibly forms a superspecies with P. elegans, P. versicolor and P. iris. Three subspecies recognized.
Subspecies and Distribution:
- pallida Rothschild, 1904 - Bougainville (N Solomons).
- nigrifrons Mayr, 1935 - Choiseul (C Solomons).
- anerythra Rothschild, 1901 - Santa Isabel (C Solomons).
Pitta anerythra is endemic to Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, and Choiseul and Santa Isabel, Solomon Islands. It was formerly reasonably common, at least on Bougainville, where 40 specimens were collected before 1938. Tirotonga, it is found in primary forest, and also small forest remnants and regrowth thickets within a patchwork of gardens between 400-600 m. Here it is more common in the secondary thickets of the gardened areas and less common in large tracts of primary forest. Two nests found in 1998 were in tiny fragments of closed-canopy forest next to gardens and thickets, one in 1999 was in primary forest. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Whitney expeditions found this species in forested mountain valleys and coastal and alluvial plain.
Chiefly snails and insects (beetles, ants), also earthworms, spiders, woodlice (Isopoda); occasionally shrimps and crabs, also leeches, even small lizards. Some vegetable matter sometimes taken, e.g. fruits and berries, seeds. Stones or hard wood used as “anvils” to smash snail shells; small lizard bashed against logs before swallowing. Forages on ground, singly or in loose contact with partner.
No information