Pitta brachyura

The blue-winged thrush is named after its body with bright and dazzling colors such as red, green, blue, white, black, yellow, brown and chestnut. It is a bird of great ornamental value. In fact, it has more than eight colors. The color from the forehead to the occipital part of the head is dark chestnut brown, the crown pattern is black, the eyebrow pattern is dark yellow, the eyes, cheeks, ear feathers and side of the neck are all black, and are connected with the crown. The lines are connected at the nape of the neck to form a collar spot. The back is bright oil green, and the wings, waist and tail feathers are bright pink blue. The lower body is light tea yellow, and the center of the abdomen to the lower tail coverts are scarlet. In the jungle, these colorful feathers on its body blend with natural colors such as sunlight, green leaves, purple flowers, and white pistils, and thus become a special protective color.
The blue-winged thrush is a small bird with a strong beak, long

Distributed in the Indian subcontinent and southwest China, including India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. In China, it is distributed in Yunnan, Anhui, Henan, Hebei, Fujian, Shanghai, Taiwan, Hainan, Guangdong, and Guangxi.
It mainly inhabits various types of forests with thick deciduous leaves on flat plains and hills below 200 meters above sea level. It is also found in shrubs and small trees beside streams at the edge of forests, banyan trees in field dams, small trees beside villages, and bamboo forests.

The blue-winged pitta is called Indian Pitta in foreign language, and has no subspecies.

Blue-winged pitta is often seen in groups of 10-20 under the canopy, or on nearby branches. It likes lowland shrubs and secondary forests. It jumps on the ground like a thrush. It is active in the shade and wet places under the forest and is the most widely distributed bird in this family. It is a summer migratory bird in China and migrates to the southern tropical area through the coastal area in late autumn to overwinter. The bird's singing is a loud and clear flute sound "tae-laew, tae-laew", which lasts less than 1 minute; the alarm call is a hoarse "skyeew" sound.

Blue-winged Pittas usually move in pairs during the breeding season, constantly making nuptial calls. When they sing, their chests, necks and tails swing up and down and play with each other. Sometimes they stand on branches, and sometimes they jump to the ground and use their feet to dig up dead branches and leaves on the ground to find food. They are agile and very alert. When there is an occasional sound, the male and female birds immediately separate and move quickly. When mating, the female bird stands on a small tree about 2 meters above the ground. The male bird quickly flies to the back of the female bird. The female bird does not move, squats and lifts its tail. The male bird flaps his wings to maintain balance and mates. At this time, both birds stop singing. After mating, the female bird still stands still, and the male bird flies to another branch. They each tidy up their feathers, and then fly to the ground to find food.

Blue-winged Pittas usually build nests in tall natural broad-leaved forests in late May, and a small number of them choose to build nests in artificial fir forests. The male and female birds jointly build the nest. One parent bird uses its claws to clear the weeds and fallen leaves on the ground to form a round pit, while the other parent bird searches for nesting materials on the ground within a range of about 30 meters around the nest. First, use dead branches of maple poplar, chestnut and other trees to pile up a platform-like nest foundation on the round pit on the ground to keep the nest stable and prevent the nest built on it from rolling down the slope. It also has the function of waterproofing and moisture-proofing. Then, mix and coil weeds, mosses, twigs, thin stems, etc. to build a spherical ground nest with an outer diameter of about 20 cm, an inner diameter of about 7 cm, and a depth of 15-19 cm. The nest is covered with finer weeds, petioles, pine needles and leaves, etc. There are often small bushes or ferns in front of the nest mouth to hide the nest mouth.

Each nest lays 5-7 eggs, which are milky white, mixed with purple-brown light and dark spots with regular patterns. The sharp-ended ones are sparse, and the blunt-ended ones are denser. The size is 26×23 mm, and the egg weight is 5-6 grams. The parent birds do not sit in the nest or move around the nest until all the eggs are laid. They start to incubate after the last egg is laid. The incubation is shared by the male and female birds, and they both have a strong love for the nest. When one parent bird is incubating, the other one will sing and be on guard on the tree or ground near the nest. When the parents change incubation, they first sing to each other, then the parent bird sitting in the nest flies out of the nest first, and the other parent bird enters the nest to incubate after a few minutes.

The incubation period is 15 days. After the chicks hatch, the male and female birds will raise the chicks together for about 13 days. After they come back from foraging, they do not enter the nest directly, but stand on a small tree 4 meters away from the nest to watch. When they see that there is no danger around, they quickly enter the nest and put the food into the chicks' mouths. When the chicks are just hatched, they weigh only 5 grams and are 46 mm long. They are hairless, have closed eyes, yellow beaks, flesh-colored feet, and have obvious feather and bare areas. By the time they fly, the chicks have grown to more than 50 grams and their length has reached more than 90 mm.

Listed in the 2013 Red List of Endangered Species of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) ver 3.1 - Least Concern (LC).

Listed as a Class II protected animal in China.

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