El Niño draws ‘Kasai Pitta' out in Rayalaseema scrub lands

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In the arid scrub of Rayalaseema, where summer lasts nearly half the year, a small masked predator has returned to its perch. The butcher bird, locally called the ‘kasai pitta’, is being sighted again across the region’s driest patches.

The long-tailed shrike, Lanius schach, is seen in stony wastelands and thorn scrub around Galiveedu, Tamballapalle, Rayachoti and Lakkireddipalle in Annamayya; Vempalle, Jammalamadugu and Pulivendula in Kadapa; Gooty, Tadipatri, Penukonda and Kadiri in combined Anantapur; Adoni and Pattikonda in Kurnool; and Nagari, Puthalapattu and Punganur in Chittoor. It is also sighted along the Penna River belt and fringes of the Erramala and Palakonda ranges in Nandyal and Kadapa.

Perched silently on a tree trunk or power line across fields and forest buffers, the bird with a black bandit mask scans the parched ground. It swoops like a dart at lizards, grasshoppers, mice, and small snakes. Farmers often find its prey pinned on thorns or barbed wire, its open-air meat shop.

It is widely called kasai pitta. It impales prey and displays it like a butcher shop. It is incredibly clever and very cruel to its prey, says Krishnappa Kumar, 24, a horticulture farmer from Mandipeta Kotur in Palamaner mandal.

Groundnut farmer Ramireddy Kasireddy of Galiveedu in Annamayya says the bird, though small, does not spare even snakes of moderate size. “If a snake is small, the bird handles it easily. If it’s a young snake or moderate lizard, it lifts them by the tail or spine and drops them on thorny bushes, thus arresting prey, and impales them live before eating at leisure.,” he said.

Dr V. V. Balasubramanyam, associate professor of Zoology at Sri Krishnadevaraya University, Anantapur, says, “Impaling compensates for weak talons. With poor grip, it uses thorns as forks to tear flesh and store food for lean days.”

The bird is listed as Least Concern by IUCN, with a stable global population, and is not endangered globally. But in Rayalaseema, particularly in the south, it faces severe local stress. Scrublands are vanishing for housing layouts, and intensive pesticide use in mango, tomato, and groundnut belts in Chittoor, Annamayya, and Anantapur kills its insect prey. This El Niño year, the breeding of grasshoppers and beetles that feed its chicks fell drastically.

A senior forest official in Sri Sathya Sai district said that in an El Niño year, sightings became more frequent. With green cover thinned, spotting prey on barren ground is easier, so birds are visible more often. But vast fields are left uncultivated, and grasslands wither, so actually finding prey is harder. Their breeding and survival are in question if the scrub ecosystem collapses.

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