page_title: Common hill myna
section_title: Distribution and ecology
hierarchical_section_title: Common hill myna / Distribution and ecology
caption_attribution_description: English: Common Hill Myna Gracula religiosa at Jayanti in Buxa Tiger Reserve in Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal, India.
context_page_description: The common hill myna, sometimes spelled "mynah" and formerly simply known as the hill myna or myna bird, is the myna most commonly seen in aviculture, where it is often simply referred to by the latter two names. It is a member of the starling family, resident in hill regions of South Asia and Southeast Asia. The Sri Lanka hill myna, a former subspecies of G. religiosa, is now generally accepted as a separate species G. ptilogenys. The Enggano hill myna and Nias hill myna are also widely accepted as specifically distinct, and many authors favor treating the southern hill myna from the Nilgiris and elsewhere in the Western Ghats of India as a separate species.
  The common hill myna is a popular talking bird. Its specific name religiosa may allude to the practice of teaching mynas to repeat prayers.
context_section_description: This myna is a resident breeder from Kumaon division in India (80° E longitude) east through Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh, the lower Himalayas, terai and foothills up to 2,000 m ASL. Its range continues east through Southeast Asia northeastwards to southern China, and via Thailand southeastwards across northern Indonesia to Palawan in the Philippines. It is virtually extinct in Bangladesh due to habitat destruction and overexploitation for the pet trade. A feral population on Christmas Island has likewise disappeared. Introduced populations exist in Saint Helena, Puerto Rico and perhaps in the mainland United States and possibly elsewhere; feral birds require at least a warm subtropical climate to persist.
  This myna is almost entirely arboreal, moving in large, noisy groups of half a dozen or so, in tree-tops at the edge of the forest. It hops sideways along the branch, unlike the characteristic jaunty walk of other mynas. Like most starlings, the hill myna is fairly omnivorous, eating fruit, nectar and insects.
  They build a nest in a hole in a tree. The usual clutch is two or three eggs. There is no sexual dimorphism in these birds, which results in a limited possibility of choosing the sex to work with for mating.
caption: Courting pair allopreening at Jayanti in the Buxa Tiger Reserve (Jalpaiguri district, West Bengal, India)
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