Pterocles indicus
Silhouette: PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~20%
The painted sandgrouse (Pterocles indicus) is a medium large bird in the sandgrouse family Pteroclidae found in India and Pakistan. The painted sandgrouse 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 all the other grouse-like birds in the genus Tetrao and coined the binomial name Tetrao indicus. Gmelin based his description on "La gélinote des Indes" from the Coromandel Coast that had been described and illustrated in 1782 by the French naturalist Pierre Sonnerat. The painted sandgrouse is now placed with 13 other species in genus Pterocles that was introduced in 1815 by the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek pteron meaning "wing" with -klēs meaning "notable" or "splendid". The specific epithet indicus is Latin for "Indian". The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.
The painted sandgrouse is a plump ground-dwelling bird with a small head and short legs. The sexes are differently coloured. In the male, the bill is orange and there is a black bar across the white forehead... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ranthambore National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 2 | Gir National Park | 🇮🇳 India |
No species of the same family or order lives in Gir National Park, so these are its closest relatives here: other birds.
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Painted Sandgrouse sighting in Gir National Park on a given day, based on 5 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 128th most-seen of the 135 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.
May
In that month about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Painted Sandgrouse in Gir National Park on a given day, against under 5% in June and September–April, the lowest months. That is one of Gir National Park's driest months, with about 20 mm of rain against 330 mm in July. July and August have too few records to rate.
Between noon and 3 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Painted Sandgrouse sightings with a recorded time, and about 7 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
2nd of 2
Of the 2 parks where we can rate Painted Sandgrouse sightings, Gir National Park ranks 2nd at under 5%. The best odds are in Ranthambore National Park (India, about 20%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Painted Sandgrouse is recorded against all the birds logged in Gir National Park (5 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.
