Gurney's Pitta survey in Myanmar

By Phil Round

Ever since my search for, and eventual successful rediscovery of, Gurney's Pitta in southern Thailand, I have dreamed of entering southern Myanmar to search for this brilliant creature there, too. Gurney's Pitta was first described from southern Myanmar, in 1875, and nearly half of all the 103 specimens in museums around the world were collected there. Curiously, though, there were no Burmese breeding records: the only records of nest and young came from southern Thailand, leading initially to speculation that Gurney's Pitta was perhaps only a non-breeding visitor to Myanmar. However, the absence of any similar migratory pattern among other Sundaic forest birds, and close parallels in the seasonal distribution of sightings between Myanmar and Thailand (where the species is resident, but becomes very hard to detect from July onwards) seem to imply that Gurney's Pitta nests in sourthern Myanmar too.

There have been no confirmed records of Gurney's Pitta from Myanmar since 1941, yet birds of unknown provenance continue to pass through the illegal bird trade, ending up in Thai zoos. There are so few Gurney's Pitta left in sourthern Thailand that it is almost certain that most or all such emanate from sourthern Myanmar.

It looked this year as if I would finally get to enter Myanmar on my pitta chase, through the good offices of BENCA (Bird Enthusiasts and Nature Conservation Association) a Burmese NGO, and with support from BirdLife and the RSPB. Dr Htin Hla and Ms khin Ma Ma Thwin, both Burmese ornithologists and nature conservationists who with other set up BENCA and initiated the Gurney's Pitta survey, met me at Rangoon Airport in early May. Provided with forest cover and topographic maps, we plotted a potential survey route. We weren't sure how we could get around: the roads are rutted and for some of the time boat travel, followed by a long tramp on foot, night be necessary to access forest patches as remain.

Most historical collecting localities of Gurney's Pitta were towards the extreme south, close to the coast. Judging from the rather small scale forest cover images, it looked as if most of the extreme lowland forest, which should hold Gurney's Pitta and many other globally threatened or near-threatened forest birds, had already been cleared. In much of sourthern Myanmar, as elsewhere in the Sunda subbregion, forest in most of the lowland has already been largely replaced by plantations of rubber and oil-palm. But further north, where the isthmus broadens, yet still within the known historical range of Gurney's Pitta, there seemed to be a larger lowland forest area. Besides the first records of Gurney's Pitta for Myanmar for nearly one hundred years, loomed the prospect of other exciting discoveries: possible northern range extensions for other threatened Sundaic forest birds, discovered from sourthern Myanmar. And perhaps one of the largest and most potentially viable tracts of lowlands rainforest remaining anywhere in the Sunda region.

After flying back to Bangkok, I then traveled down to Ranong, the Thai provincial capital opposite the southernmost Burmese settlement of Kawthaung, where I was to meet HTin Hla, Hazel and their colleagues, as soon as they had made the rather more arduous trip from Rangoon by a combination of plane and boat. A Thai colleagues, Yotin Meekaeo, an ace forest bird finder and a man who has found more Gurney's Pitta in the wild than anyone still living, also joined me.

However, events on the world stage conspired to defeat us. A border incursion into northern Thailand by ethnic Wa troops from Burma, more than one thousand km to the north of Ranong, prompted a vigorous respond by the Thai military. Burmese government forces in turn countered by closing the whole land border between the two countries, denying both Thailand and Myanmar the lifeblood of cross border trade, and incidentally preventing our Thai and Burmese filed teams meeting up. It was very frustrating, being in contact on opposite sides of the border by mobile phone, yet prevented by a curfew and by armed soldiers from traveling either way. Htin Hla's brief forays into forest close to Kawthaung were also impeded by the presence of soldiers and he was left with no alternative but to return to Rangoon. Today, three months later, the Thai-Burmese border remains closed.

In spite of our failure this year, both BirdLife and BENCA remain determined that the survey will go ahead as soon as practicable, and plans are already being made for a repeat attempt in early 2003