By Ian Hall

Rounding a bend in the trail I spotted something large, blue and pitta-like bouncing away from me. Boing! boing! boing! and it was gone. I knew immediately what it was even though I had never seen one before. Damn! Damn! Damn! I cursed. There was no question that that was a Giant Pitta but in the arcane world of bird watching this could only be described as an un-tickable sighting. I needed to get another look.

I tiptoed forward, pausing I scanned the forest floor and half imagined that I saw something blue. Bringing binoculars quickly to bear I realised he was still there, a male, partially obscured by branches and fuzzy in the late afternoon light. It was the sort of blue that one minute is most striking iridescence and the next has you rubbing your eyes as if it were an illusion. With each hop a different part of the bird was revealed; buff underside, heavy bill, black Mohawk stripe, black collar but never a clear view.

I had moved up the sighting scale to ‘tickable but unsatisfactory’.

To see a Giant Pitta is a holy grail for many birdwatchers. Like many rare terrestrial birds they are noted for their shyness. With the exception of some of the Bornean endemics it is one of the most highly prized sightings at Borneo Rainforest Lodge. My bragging rights were already ensured but I had an inkling that the experience was not over.

Something about the direction he was moving suggested that my pitta might come back into the open of the trail. As there had been no rain for two weeks I sat down on the dry leaf litter without fear of leeches. Although out of sight I knew he was still there so I waited.

What happened next popped right out of my fantasy. A female broke cover and hopped onto the middle of the trail. She was coloured a lustrous leaf litter brown, her movement both unhurried and fleeting. I was certain the male would follow her and two minutes later there he was, pausing just long enough to get my bins on him and then he too was gone. I sat cross legged shaking my head and not yet ready to write the ending.

The Sapa Bebandil river was very close, I could see a shingle bank from my seat. I remember Pete, my birding mentor saying that Pittas need to drink in the morning and again before they roost. With the forest so dry I reasoned they may be heading to the river, in which case it was likely that they would come back the same way. I waited. I don’t know how long.

The female was first to break cover again. She hopped boldly up onto a log where she perched for me. Her size and shape was almost like a small partridge, but more slender. Not keen on being in the open she flitted the rest of the way across the trail. Waiting for her beau to reappear, my heart fluttered when a dark shape stepped onto the trail. A bit big for a pitta, it turned out to be a male crested fireback pheasant, scratching insouciantly at the ground he strutted towards me.

In my mind I was starting to compose the ending – I wasn’t to see the male again, I must have missed him or the pheasant chased him off. Ye of little faith, for there he was, and closer too! A few bounces took him across the trail and into the undergrowth where he waited partially obscured as before. Then he did something un-pitta-like and flew up about 2m above the ground. I couldn’t see where he landed.

‘That’s it’ I thought, ‘it’s getting darker and I can’t expect to see any more’. I looked at the path to gauge how much daylight I had and was startled to see the female turning over leaves and pecking at the rotten wood of a tree stump. Each time her head went down I could see her blue bum go up.

She continued like this until I caught a flutter in my peripheral vision. I looked up just in time to see the male moving to a higher perch. Now I was thinking ‘surely not, he’s not going to roost right in front of me!’ I removed my glasses and waved them back and forth to remove the condensation. When I put them back on again I couldn’t see him any more.