▲ Jeju is a haven for the Fairy Pitta. Photo courtesy Jason Thompson

Jeju has been found to offer the nation’s largest habitat for fairy pittas, an endangered species of bird. The Subtropical Research Center of the Korea Forest Service-affiliated Korea Forest Research Institute discovered that 60 couples reside on the island after 11 years of research. It makes Jeju their most important habitat in Korea.

The fairy pitta, also known as Pitta nympha and sometimes the “seven-colored bird”, is a small species that eats worms, spiders, insects, slugs, and snails. It mostly inhabits rocky wooded valleys and it is found across Northeast Asia in Japan, South Korea, mainland China and Taiwan. It winters on the islands of Borneo and Kalimantan in Southeast Asia.

The research established that the birds arrive in Jeju in mid-May and begin spawning in early June. The parent birds brood over their eggs for 13 days before they hatch, and and the chicks are fed for another 13 days before leaving the nest around mid-August.

This bird is classified as vulnerable by BirdLife International, with an estimated population of between 2,500 and 10,000 individuals. Its population is inferred to be rapidly declining due to deforestation in its breeding range, principally for agriculture and timber, compounded in some areas by trapping for the cage-bird trade.