Coracias affinis
Silhouette: Ferran Sayol · PhyloPic
In 3 days <5% in a week ~10%
The Indochinese roller (Coracias affinis) or Burmese roller, is a member of the roller bird family. It occurs widely from Nepal, eastern India to Myanmar and Southeast Asia. It is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.
The Indochinese roller was formally described in 1840 by the American naturalist Thomas Horsfield under the binomial name Coracias affinis based on specimens that had been collected in Assam by the naturalist John McClelland. The specific epithet affinis is from Latin adfinis or affinis meaning "related" or "allied".
McClelland has sometimes been credited as the authority but under the rules of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature Horsfield now receives the credit. The Indochinese roller was formerly considered as a subspecies of the Indian roller because of a narrow hybrid zone in northeast India but a molecular phylogenetic study published in 2018 found that the Indochinese roller was more closely related to the purple-winged roller (Coracias temminckii) than it is to the Indian roller. The Indochinese roller is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.
The phylogenetic relationships among the Coracias species are shown below, from... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kaziranga National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 2 | Kaeng Krachan National Park | 🇹🇭 Thailand | |
| 3 | Manas National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 4 | Cat Tien National Park | 🇻🇳 Vietnam | |
| 5 | Doi Inthanon National Park | 🇹🇭 Thailand | |
| 6 | Khao Yai National Park | 🇹🇭 Thailand | |
| 7 | Royal Manas National Park | 🇧🇹 Bhutan | |
| 8 | Khao Luang National Park | 🇹🇭 Thailand | |
| 9 | Khao Sok National Park | 🇹🇭 Thailand | |
| 10 | Namdapha National Park | 🇮🇳 India |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bangkok | 🇹🇭 Thailand | |
| 2 | Yangon | 🇲🇲 Myanmar | |
| 3 | Phnom Penh | 🇰🇭 Cambodia | |
| 4 | Guwahati | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 5 | Kolkata | 🇮🇳 India |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report an Indochinese Roller sighting in Kolkata on a given day, based on 145 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 134th most-seen of the 247 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to under 5%, and over a week to about 10%, if each day is a fresh chance.
December
In that month about 10% of wildlife watchers report an Indochinese Roller in Kolkata on a given day, against under 5% in January to November, the lowest months. That is one of Kolkata's driest months, with about 10 mm of rain against 330 mm in July.
Between 3 and 6 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Indochinese Roller sightings with a recorded time, and about 6 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is most active around dawn and dusk.
5th of 5
Of the 5 cities where we can rate Indochinese Roller sightings, Kolkata ranks 5th at under 5%. The best odds are in Bangkok (Thailand, about 40%), Yangon (Myanmar, about 40%) and Phnom Penh (Cambodia, about 10%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Indochinese Roller is recorded against all the birds logged in Kolkata (145 verified sightings), 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.
