ONE of the rarest and most beautiful birds in the world has been rediscovered in southern Myanmar, 89 years after the last of its species was seen, BirdLife International said.

Gurney’s pitta, Pitta gurneyi, is a brilliantly coloured secretive bird of the forest floor and is known in peninsular Thailand and adjacent southern Tenasserin, Myanmar (formerly known as Burma). The discovery was made by a team of conservationists from Birdlife International, the Bird Enthusiasts and Nature Conservation Association, and the Myanmar Department of Forests during a month long survey of lowland forests in southern Myanmar.

The Gurney’s pitta is close to extinction and is classified on the IUCN-World Conservation Union Red List as critically endangered. Before this discovery only 30 birds were known in a small area of southern Thailand.

The team found pittas at four lowland forest sites, with a maximum of 10 to 12 pairs at one of these, all sites were close to historical collecting localities. BirdLife says that the last confirmed record of Gurney’s pitta from Myanmar was in 1914.

These birds occur in secondary, regenerating, lowland semi-evergreen forest, with understoreys containing Salacca palms, in which they nest, BirdLife explains. Territories are centred on gulley systems where moist conditions prevail in all seasons, usually with access to water, and often close to forest edge.

The surviving Gurney’s Pittas in Myanmar are threatened by the rapid clearance of their forest habitat to make way for logging, both official and illegal, and conversion to croplands, fruit orchards, coffee, rubber and oil palm plantations.

In southern Thailand conservationists from two BirdLife International Partner organizations — the Bird Conservation Society of Thailand and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds - are working with the Thai authorities to protect the dwindling population of Gurney’s pitta. — Samina Iqbal