Amandava amandava
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~40%
The red avadavat (Amandava amandava), red munia or strawberry finch, is a sparrow-sized bird of the family Estrildidae. It is found in the open fields and grasslands of tropical Asia and is popular as a cage bird due to the colourful plumage of the males in their breeding season. It breeds in the Indian subcontinent in the monsoon season. The species name of amandava and the common name of avadavat are derived from the city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat, India, from where these birds were exported into the pet trade in former times.
The red avadavat was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Fringilla amandava. Linnaeus based his description on "The Amaduvads Cock and Hen" that has been described and illustrated in 1738 by the English naturalist Eleazar Albin. Linnaeus specified the locality as East India but this was restricted to Kolkata (Calcutta) by E. C. Stuart Baker in 1921. This species is now placed in the genus Amandava that was introduced in 1836 by the English zoologist Edward Blyth.
The red avadavat were earlier included in the genus Estrilda by Jean Delacour. This placement... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Royal Bardia National Park | 🇳🇵 Nepal | |
| 2 | Keoladeo National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 3 | Chitwan National Park | 🇳🇵 Nepal | |
| 4 | Kanha National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 5 | Satpura National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | Bandhavgarh National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 7 | Jim Corbett National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 8 | Monfragüe National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 9 | Nagarhole National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 10 | Ranthambore National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 11 | Doñana National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vasai-Virar | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 2 | Kalyan-Dombivli | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 3 | Nagpur | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 4 | Raipur | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 5 | Bhubaneshwar | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | Kathmandu | 🇳🇵 Nepal | |
| 7 | Berhampore | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 8 | Lucknow | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 9 | Riyadh | 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia | |
| 10 | Luxor | 🇪🇬 Egypt |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ZooParc de Beauval | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 2 | Skansen | 🇸🇪 Sweden | |
| 3 | Aquamarine Fukushima | 🇯🇵 Japan | |
| 4 | Helsingborgs Djur- och Lekpark | 🇸🇪 Sweden | |
| 5 | Baltic Sea Science Center | 🇸🇪 Sweden |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Red Avadavat sighting in Kolkata on a given day, based on 604 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 82nd most-seen of the 247 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 40%, if each day is a fresh chance.
November and December
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Red Avadavat in Kolkata on a given day, against under 5% in January–June and August, the lowest months. Those are among Kolkata's driest months, with about 15 mm of rain a month against 330 mm in July.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Red Avadavat sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
15th of 39
Of the 39 cities where we can rate Red Avadavat sightings, Kolkata ranks 15th at about 10%. The best odds are in Vasai-Virar (India, about 40%), Kalyan-Dombivli (India, about 20%) and Nagpur (India, about 10%).
Same family: Estrildidae
The closest relatives of the Red Avadavat that you can see in Kolkata (family Estrildidae, Waxbills and Allies) are Nutmeg Mannikin (about 10%) and Tricolored Munia (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Red Avadavat is recorded against all the birds logged in Kolkata (604 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.
