Coracias affinis
Silhouette: Ferran Sayol · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~30% in a week ~60%
The Indochinese roller (Coracias affinis) or Burmese roller, is a member of the roller bird family. It occurs widely from Nepal, eastern India to Myanmar and Southeast Asia. It is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.
The Indochinese roller was formally described in 1840 by the American naturalist Thomas Horsfield under the binomial name Coracias affinis based on specimens that had been collected in Assam by the naturalist John McClelland. The specific epithet affinis is from Latin adfinis or affinis meaning "related" or "allied".
McClelland has sometimes been credited as the authority but under the rules of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature Horsfield now receives the credit. The Indochinese roller was formerly considered as a subspecies of the Indian roller because of a narrow hybrid zone in northeast India but a molecular phylogenetic study published in 2018 found that the Indochinese roller was more closely related to the purple-winged roller (Coracias temminckii) than it is to the Indian roller. The Indochinese roller is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.
The phylogenetic relationships among the Coracias species are shown below, from... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kaziranga National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 2 | Kaeng Krachan National Park | 🇹🇭 Thailand | |
| 3 | Manas National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 4 | Cat Tien National Park | 🇻🇳 Vietnam | |
| 5 | Doi Inthanon National Park | 🇹🇭 Thailand | |
| 6 | Khao Yai National Park | 🇹🇭 Thailand | |
| 7 | Royal Manas National Park | 🇧🇹 Bhutan | |
| 8 | Khao Luang National Park | 🇹🇭 Thailand | |
| 9 | Khao Sok National Park | 🇹🇭 Thailand | |
| 10 | Namdapha National Park | 🇮🇳 India |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bangkok | 🇹🇭 Thailand | |
| 2 | Yangon | 🇲🇲 Myanmar | |
| 3 | Phnom Penh | 🇰🇭 Cambodia | |
| 4 | Guwahati | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 5 | Kolkata | 🇮🇳 India |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report an Indochinese Roller sighting in Doi Inthanon National Park on a given day, based on 370 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 115th most-seen of the 367 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.
December and January
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report an Indochinese Roller in Doi Inthanon National Park on a given day, against under 5% in July, the lowest month. Those are among Doi Inthanon National Park's driest months, with about 45 mm of rain a month against 340 mm in August.
Between 3 and 6 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Indochinese Roller sightings with a recorded time, and about 6 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is most active around dawn and dusk.
5th of 10
Of the 10 parks where we can rate Indochinese Roller sightings, Doi Inthanon National Park ranks 5th at about 10%. The best odds are in Kaziranga National Park (India, about 70%), Kaeng Krachan National Park (Thailand, about 50%) and Manas National Park (India, about 40%). All parks ranked.
Same order: Coraciiformes
The closest relatives of the Indochinese Roller that you can see in Doi Inthanon National Park (order Coraciiformes, Rollers, Kingfishers, and Allies) are Asian Green Bee-eater (about 10%), White-throated Kingfisher (about 10%) and Chestnut-headed Bee-eater (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Indochinese Roller is recorded against all the birds logged in Doi Inthanon National Park (370 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), 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.
