Sturnia malabarica
Silhouette: Rafael Maia · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~20%
The chestnut-tailed starling (Sturnia malabarica), also called grey-headed starling and grey-headed myna is a member of the starling family. It is a resident or partially migratory species found in wooded habitats in India and Southeast Asia. The species name is after the distribution of a former subspecies in the Malabar region. While the chestnut-tailed starling is a winter visitor to peninsular India, the closely related resident breeding population with a white head is now treated as a full species, the Malabar starling (Sturnia blythii).
The chestnut-tailed starling was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the thrushes in the genus Turdus and coined the binomial name Turdus malabaricus. Gmelin based his account on the "Le Martin Vieillard de la côte de Malabar" that had been described in 1782 by the French naturalist Pierre Sonnerat in his book Voyage aux Indes orientales et à la Chine.
The chestnut-tailed starling was formerly placed in the genus Sturnus. A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2008 found that the genus was polyphyletic... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kaziranga National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 2 | Manas National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 3 | Chitwan National Park | 🇳🇵 Nepal | |
| 4 | Royal Manas National Park | 🇧🇹 Bhutan | |
| 5 | Sundarbans National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | Nagarhole National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 7 | Jim Corbett National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 8 | Royal Bardia National Park | 🇳🇵 Nepal | |
| 9 | Kanha National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 10 | Mudumalai National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 11 | Namdapha National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 12 | Gir National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 13 | Doi Inthanon National Park | 🇹🇭 Thailand | |
| 14 | Bandipur National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 15 | Bandhavgarh National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 16 | Periyar National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 17 | Satpura National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 18 | Ranthambore National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 19 | Kaeng Krachan National Park | 🇹🇭 Thailand | |
| 20 | Eravikulam National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 21 | Keoladeo National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 22 | Khao Yai National Park | 🇹🇭 Thailand | |
| 23 | Cat Tien National Park | 🇻🇳 Vietnam |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Savar | 🇧🇩 Bangladesh | |
| 2 | Chattogram | 🇧🇩 Bangladesh | |
| 3 | Dhaka | 🇧🇩 Bangladesh | |
| 4 | Asansol | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 5 | Kaohsiung | 🇹🇼 Taiwan | |
| 6 | Jamshedpur | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 7 | Guwahati | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 8 | Berhampore | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 9 | Tamluk | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 10 | Bhubaneshwar | 🇮🇳 India |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Chestnut-tailed Starling sighting in Ponnani on a given day, based on 30 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 117th most-seen of the 177 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.
January
In that month about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Chestnut-tailed Starling in Ponnani on a given day, against under 5% in February to December, the lowest months. That is one of Ponnani's driest months, with about 10 mm of rain against 440 mm in June.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Chestnut-tailed Starling sightings with a recorded time, and about 7 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is most active around dawn and dusk.
42nd of 51
Of the 51 cities where we can rate Chestnut-tailed Starling sightings, Ponnani ranks 42nd at under 5%. The best odds are in Savar (Bangladesh, about 60%), Chattogram (Bangladesh, about 60%) and Dhaka (Bangladesh, about 50%).
Same family: Sturnidae
The closest relatives of the Chestnut-tailed Starling that you can see in Ponnani (family Sturnidae, Starlings) are Jungle Myna (about 10%) and Rosy Starling (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Chestnut-tailed Starling is recorded against all the birds logged in Ponnani (30 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.
