Hill myna (Gracula religiosa) - The speech genius among the starlings
Hill mynas inhabit subtropical rainforests in South-East Asia. Their major distribution range is on Sri Lanka, but they can also be found in India, China, Thailand and on the South-East Asian islands. There are seven subspecies which are very similar but seperated by their distribution ranges. They have the black, green and violet shimmering plummage, the orange coloured bill and the yellow skin areas beneath and behind their eyes in common. Males and females are very similar in their appearance. The best known subspecies are the Lesser hill myna, the Common hill myna and the Greater hill myna. While the Lesser hill myna is a rather dainty bird with a length of 24 cm, the Greater hill myna is quite magnificent reaching lengths up to 35 cm. Besides forests, Hill mynas inhabit tea- and fruit plantations. They especially like these places since fruits are their prefered food. But also small animals are among their diet; besides insects they also hunt small reptiles.
Hill mynas are monogamous, living in pairs. Outside the mating season, which lasts from April to June, they mostly can be found living in small groups, which wander about quite noisy searching for food. During the mating season the pairs leave the groups and occupy nesting caves, which they find in hollow trees. They pad the nesting caves and after a rather rough courtship and mating just two to three eggs of turquoise colour with brown dots are laid, which are incubated for 14 days by the female. The naked and blind hatchlings are fed with small insects during the first week of their life. Now the father starts helping his partner raising the young. When they've reached the age of one week, their diet is supplemented with fruits. After a bit more than one month they leave their nesting cave. They are able to fly immediatelly, but are still fed by their parents. But soon they'll start searching for food themselves. This is the time when they are driven away by their parents, which start caring for a second brood.
Many starling species mimic the sounds of their surroundings, but Hill mynas are THE perfectionists concerning this talent. When kept by man they'll soon start mimicing the human speech - much better than parrots. This behaviour made Hill mynas popular cage birds. But there is a significant problem: breeding Hill mynas in captivity is everything else than easy. It starts with the difficult bringing together of a harmonizing pair and ends with the feeding of the young with living insects. These difficulties makes it more profitable for the animal trade to catch young Hill mynas in their natural habitat, collect them in certain stations and then transport them to their destinations. Large numbers of birds die because of the brutal catching methods and the strains of the transport. These are the reasons why someone, who is interested in keeping Hill mynas, should be careful to buy birds bred in captivity or kept by another enthusiast. Since Hill mynas are social living birds it's important to keep them in pairs. In larger cages it's also possible to keep them in small groups.
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