Rostratula benghalensis
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~50%
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 Vasai-Virar on a given day, based on 106 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 94th most-seen of the 217 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 50%, if each day is a fresh chance.
June
In that month about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Greater Painted-Snipe in Vasai-Virar on a given day, against under 5% in March and July–December, the lowest months. That is one of Vasai-Virar's wettest months, with about 520 mm of rain against almost none in January.
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.
5th of 47
Of the 47 cities where we can rate Greater Painted-Snipe sightings, Vasai-Virar ranks 5th 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 Vasai-Virar (order Charadriiformes, Shorebirds and Allies) are Red-wattled Lapwing (about 50%), Common Sandpiper (about 40%) and Wood Sandpiper (about 40%), 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 Vasai-Virar (106 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.
