Esacus recurvirostris
Silhouette: Auckland Museum · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~20%
The great stone-curlew or great thick-knee (Esacus recurvirostris) is a large wader which is a resident breeder in tropical southern Asia from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh into South-east Asia. The great stone-curlew was formally described in 1829 by the French naturalist Georges Cuvier and given the binomial name Oedicnemus recurvirostris. The type locality is Nepal. The specific epithet recurvirostris combines Latin recurvis meaning "bent backwards" with -rostris meaning "-billed". The species is now placed in the genus Esacus that was introduced in 1831 to accommodate the great stone-curlew by the French naturalist René Lesson. The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.
The great thick-knee is a large wader at 49–55 cm, and has a massive 7 cm bill with the lower mandible with a sharp angle giving it an upturned appearance. It has unstreaked grey-brown upperparts and breast, with rest of the underparts whitish. The face has a striking black and white pattern, and the bill is black with a yellow base. The eyes are bright yellow and the legs a duller greenish-yellow. In flight, the great thick-knee shows black and white flight... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yala National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 2 | Wilpattu National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 3 | Udawalawe National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 4 | Ranthambore National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 5 | Kaziranga National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | Satpura National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 7 | Gir National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 8 | Jim Corbett National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 9 | Minneriya National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 10 | Manas National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 11 | Keoladeo National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 12 | Kanha National Park | 🇮🇳 India |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Coimbatore | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 2 | Kathmandu | 🇳🇵 Nepal | |
| 3 | Colombo [Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte] | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Great Thick-knee sighting in Jim Corbett National Park on a given day, based on 81 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 207th most-seen of the 368 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.
February–April and December
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Great Thick-knee in Jim Corbett National Park on a given day, against under 5% in January and May–November, the lowest months. Those are among Jim Corbett National Park's driest months, with about 25 mm of rain a month against 360 mm in July.
Between 4 and 7 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Great Thick-knee sightings with a recorded time, and about half of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is most active around dawn and dusk.
8th of 12
Of the 12 parks where we can rate Great Thick-knee sightings, Jim Corbett National Park ranks 8th at under 5%. The best odds are in Yala National Park (Sri Lanka, about 40%), Wilpattu National Park (Sri Lanka, about 40%) and Udawalawe National Park (Sri Lanka, about 20%). All parks ranked.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Great Thick-knee is recorded against all the birds logged in Jim Corbett National Park (81 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.
