Pomatorhinus horsfieldii
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~20%
The Indian scimitar babbler (Pomatorhinus horsfieldii) is an Old World babbler. It is found in peninsular India in a range of forest habitats. They are most often detected by their distinctive calls, which include an antiphonal duet by a pair of birds. They are often hard to see as they forage through dense vegetation. The long, curved yellow, scimitar-shaped bills give them their name. It has been treated in the past as a subspecies of the white-browed scimitar babbler which is found along the Himalayas but now separated into two species, the peninsular Indian species and the Sri Lanka scimitar babbler (Pomatorhinus melanurus).
The most distinctive feature of this 22 cm long bird is the long down-curved yellow bill which is blackish at the base of the upper mandible. It has a striking head pattern, with a long white supercilium above a broad black band through the eye. The white throat and breast contrast with the dark greyish brown on the upperside and dark grey to black on most of the underside. The tail is broad, long and graduated. They have short, round wings and being weak fliers are rarely seen flying in the open.
Indian scimitar-babblers have long down-curved... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Periyar National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 2 | Kanha National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 3 | Mudumalai National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 4 | Eravikulam National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 5 | Nagarhole National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | Bandipur National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 7 | Satpura National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 8 | Bandhavgarh National Park | 🇮🇳 India |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bhubaneshwar | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 2 | Mumbai | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 3 | Kochi | 🇮🇳 India |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report an Indian Scimitar-Babbler sighting in Bandhavgarh National Park on a given day, based on 49 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 154th most-seen of the 241 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 20%, if each day is a fresh chance.
February, April, June and October
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report an Indian Scimitar-Babbler in Bandhavgarh National Park on a given day, against under 5% in March, May, July–September and November–January, the lowest months. Those are among Bandhavgarh National Park's driest months, with about 55 mm of rain a month against 400 mm in August.
Between 3 and 6 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Indian Scimitar-Babbler sightings with a recorded time, and about half of them come between 6 pm and 6 am: it is most active around dawn and dusk.
8th of 8
Of the 8 parks where we can rate Indian Scimitar-Babbler sightings, Bandhavgarh National Park ranks 8th at under 5%. The best odds are in Periyar National Park (India, about 40%), Kanha National Park (India, about 30%) and Mudumalai National Park (India, about 20%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Indian Scimitar-Babbler is recorded against all the birds logged in Bandhavgarh National Park (49 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
