Sturnia malabarica
Silhouette: Rafael Maia · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~60% in a week ~90%
The chestnut-tailed starling (Sturnia malabarica), also called grey-headed starling and grey-headed myna is a member of the starling family. It is a resident or partially migratory species found in wooded habitats in India and Southeast Asia. The species name is after the distribution of a former subspecies in the Malabar region. While the chestnut-tailed starling is a winter visitor to peninsular India, the closely related resident breeding population with a white head is now treated as a full species, the Malabar starling (Sturnia blythii).
The chestnut-tailed starling 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 the thrushes in the genus Turdus and coined the binomial name Turdus malabaricus. Gmelin based his account on the "Le Martin Vieillard de la côte de Malabar" that had been described in 1782 by the French naturalist Pierre Sonnerat in his book Voyage aux Indes orientales et à la Chine.
The chestnut-tailed starling was formerly placed in the genus Sturnus. A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2008 found that the genus was polyphyletic... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kaziranga National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 2 | Manas National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 3 | Chitwan National Park | 🇳🇵 Nepal | |
| 4 | Royal Manas National Park | 🇧🇹 Bhutan | |
| 5 | Sundarbans National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | Nagarhole National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 7 | Jim Corbett National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 8 | Royal Bardia National Park | 🇳🇵 Nepal | |
| 9 | Kanha National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 10 | Mudumalai National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 11 | Namdapha National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 12 | Gir National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 13 | Doi Inthanon National Park | 🇹🇭 Thailand | |
| 14 | Bandipur National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 15 | Bandhavgarh National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 16 | Periyar National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 17 | Satpura National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 18 | Ranthambore National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 19 | Kaeng Krachan National Park | 🇹🇭 Thailand | |
| 20 | Eravikulam National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 21 | Keoladeo National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 22 | Khao Yai National Park | 🇹🇭 Thailand | |
| 23 | Cat Tien National Park | 🇻🇳 Vietnam |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Savar | 🇧🇩 Bangladesh | |
| 2 | Chattogram | 🇧🇩 Bangladesh | |
| 3 | Dhaka | 🇧🇩 Bangladesh | |
| 4 | Asansol | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 5 | Kaohsiung | 🇹🇼 Taiwan | |
| 6 | Jamshedpur | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 7 | Guwahati | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 8 | Berhampore | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 9 | Tamluk | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 10 | Bhubaneshwar | 🇮🇳 India |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Chestnut-tailed Starling sighting in Royal Manas National Park on a given day, based on 274 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 52nd most-seen of the 388 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 60%, and over a week to about 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
May
In that month about 40% of wildlife watchers report a Chestnut-tailed Starling in Royal Manas National Park on a given day, against about 10% in January and October, the lowest months. August and September have too few records to rate.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Chestnut-tailed Starling sightings with a recorded time, and about 7 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is most active around dawn and dusk.
4th of 23
Of the 23 parks where we can rate Chestnut-tailed Starling sightings, Royal Manas National Park ranks 4th at about 20%. The best odds are in Kaziranga National Park (India, about 50%), Manas National Park (India, about 40%) and Chitwan National Park (Nepal, about 40%). All parks ranked.
Same family: Sturnidae
The closest relatives of the Chestnut-tailed Starling that you can see in Royal Manas National Park (family Sturnidae, Starlings) are White-vented Myna (about 20%), Common Hill Myna (about 10%) and Jungle Myna (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Chestnut-tailed Starling is recorded against all the birds logged in Royal Manas National Park (274 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.
