Surely one of the most colorful ground dwelling birds in all of Africa is Green-breasted Pitta. Breeding birds can be seen displaying in trees, but otherwise they are very secretive and are only seen foraging amongst the leaf litter on the forest floor. Clearly they don’t want to flaunt their beauty to anyone besides a potential mate.
We went to Kibale National Park in what was the very beginning of the pittas’ breeding season. Perhaps in a different year we would have timed it perfectly to see the males on full display, but the rains were a little late and therefore breeding season wasn’t quite in full swing during our visit. As we roamed the forest in the wee hours of the morning in search of our secretive target, we only ever heard one single call note the entire time. It looked like our only chance to find a pitta in these conditions was to get extremely lucky.
Benson & Ross 
Open understory in this forest
Like most places in Uganda, it is mandatory to take an armed ranger as a safety precaution while walking in the forest. Should one bump into an elephant, I suppose it is best to be prepared. (But in the six months I have spent in Africa I have yet to meet a ranger who has actually utilized their firearm in defense of an elephant or buffalo.) While having a ranger can sometimes feel pointless, some rangers have taken to learning the birds of the region and are, for good reason, constantly requested by birding groups and become a welcomed member of the team. Initially we hoped to get paired up with Justus, a park ranger very keen to see birds who has been employed with the national park service for over a decade. Unfortunately another birding group had prior arrangements with Justus and instead we were paired with Benson, an extremely cheerful and motivated individual. But he was the first to tell us that he specializes in tracking chimps and has recently become very good at pitta tracking as well, but doesn’t know any of the other birds. We didn’t mind because the pitta was our main target and between Ross and Julien no bird would go unidentified.
We set off while it was still dark knowing that pittas, if they are going to display, are going to do it very early. But as the early morning faded into mid morning, and mid morning faded into late morning, and we still hadn’t see our target, we knew that our chances were fading. Initially Justus and Benson agreed to keep in contact with each other and should one of our groups find the bird we were to call the other group. Normally a walkie-talkie system would have been used to radio, but Justus forgot his radio and unfortunately, most of the areas we were in didn’t have cellphone reception.
We didn’t know it at the time, but Justus and his group had found the pitta very early on but couldn’t get ahold of us. Instead we unknowingly meandered trail after trail hoping to get lucky. But perhaps we did get lucky when we heard a group of Chimpanzees calling not too far away. Benson wasn’t kidding when he said he specializes in chimp tracking and he expertly took us straight to their location so we could watch from close range. The chimps had descended from the canopy and before we knew it they were right in front of us and climbing up the side of the tree. Seeing these amazing animals up close was one of the most memorable wildlife experiences I’ve ever had, and I think it was made doubly special because we simply happened upon them. There aren’t many places left in the world where that can still happen. By the end of our pitta search, we had stumbled upon three different groups of Chimpanzees! Kibale National Park has become a major tourist attraction for people wanting to come and see humanity’s closest relative in the wild and the fee to track chimps is quite high. Had we been here specifically for chimps instead of pittas, we would have paid quadruple the price!
In the end, I suppose we got the best of both worlds. When we finally found cell phone reception we learned of Justus’s success early that morning. Justus met us out in the forest to show us the exact location that his group saw the pittas and this time we had two expert pitta trackers with us and managed great views! The photos definitely do not show just how much these brightly colored Green-breasted Pittas shine! But had we found the birds early on, we might have missed out on one of the coolest primates in the entire world, Chimpanzee!
