Haliastur indus
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~30% in a week ~60%
The brahminy kite (Haliastur indus), also known as the red-backed sea-eagle, is a medium-sized bird of prey in the family Accipitridae, which also includes many other diurnal raptors, such as eagles, buzzards, and harriers, found in the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and Australia. The brahminy kite is found mainly on the coast and in inland wetlands, where it feeds on dead fish and other prey. Adults have a reddish-brown body plumage contrasting with their white head and breast which make them easy to distinguish from other birds of prey.
In 1760, French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson described and illustrated the Brahminy kite in the first volume of his Oiseaux based on a specimen collected in Pondicherry, India. He used the French name L'aigle de Pondichery. The brahminy kite was included by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. It was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither Brisson nor Buffon included a scientific... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kollam | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 2 | Colachel | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 3 | Kochi | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 4 | Thiruvananthapuram | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 5 | Ponnani | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | Kozhikode | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 7 | Mysuru | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 8 | Bengaluru | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 9 | Coimbatore | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 10 | Colombo [Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte] | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Brahminy Kite sighting in Mumbai on a given day, based on 1,147 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 53rd most-seen of the 283 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 30%, and over a week to about 60%, if each day is a fresh chance.
August and September
In those months about 40% of wildlife watchers report a Brahminy Kite in Mumbai on a given day, against about 10% in October to June, the lowest months. Those are among Mumbai's wettest months, with about 490 mm of rain a month against almost none in January.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Brahminy Kite sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
21st of 40
Of the 40 cities where we can rate Brahminy Kite sightings, Mumbai ranks 21st at about 10%. The best odds are in Kollam (India, over 90%), Colachel (India, about 90%) and Kochi (India, about 80%).
Same family: Accipitridae
The closest relatives of the Brahminy Kite that you can see in Mumbai (family Accipitridae, Hawks, Eagles, and Kites) are Black Kite (about 80%) and Western Marsh-Harrier (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Brahminy Kite is recorded against all the birds logged in Mumbai (1,147 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.
