Rostratula benghalensis
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~30%
The greater painted-snipe (Rostratula benghalensis) is a species of wader in the small painted-snipe family Rostratulidae. It widely distributed across Africa and southern Asia and is found in a variety of wetland habitats, including swamps and the edges of larger water bodies such as lakes and rivers. This species is sexually dimorphic with the female being larger and more brightly coloured than the male. The female is normally polyandrous with the males incubating the eggs and caring for the young.
The greater painted-snipe was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with the rails in the genus Rallus and coined the binomial name Rallus benghalenis. Linnaeus based his account on the "Bengall water rail" that had been described and illustrated in 1738 by the English naturalist Eleazar Albin in his A Natural History of Birds. Albin had examined a drawing that had been sent to the English silk-pattern designer Joseph Dandridge from Bengal. The greater painted-snipe is now placed with the Australian painted-snipe in the genus Rostratula that was introduced in 1816 by the French ornithologist... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ouagadougou | 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso | |
| 2 | N'Djamena | 🇹🇩 Chad | |
| 3 | Quanzhou | 🇨🇳 China | |
| 4 | Kota | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 5 | Vasai-Virar | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | Serrekunda | 🇬🇲 Gambia | |
| 7 | Coimbatore | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 8 | Thiruvananthapuram | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 9 | Taichung | 🇹🇼 Taiwan | |
| 10 | Kozhikode | 🇮🇳 India |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Greater Painted-Snipe sighting in Thiruvananthapuram on a given day, based on 109 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 82nd most-seen of the 174 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
March
In that month about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Greater Painted-Snipe in Thiruvananthapuram on a given day, against under 5% in April to November, the lowest months. That is one of Thiruvananthapuram's driest months, with about 55 mm of rain against 290 mm in October.
Between 3 and 6 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Greater Painted-Snipe sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
8th of 47
Of the 47 cities where we can rate Greater Painted-Snipe sightings, Thiruvananthapuram ranks 8th at about 10%. The best odds are in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso, about 30%), N'Djamena (Chad, about 20%) and Quanzhou (China, about 10%).
Same order: Charadriiformes
The closest relatives of the Greater Painted-Snipe that you can see in Thiruvananthapuram (order Charadriiformes, Shorebirds and Allies) are Bronze-winged Jacana (about 30%), Red-wattled Lapwing (about 30%) and Wood Sandpiper (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Greater Painted-Snipe is recorded against all the birds logged in Thiruvananthapuram (109 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.
