Gallicrex cinerea
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10%
The watercock (Gallicrex cinerea) is a waterbird in the rail and crake family, Rallidae that is widely distributed across Southeast Asia. It is the only member of the genus Gallicrex. The watercock 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 coots in the genus Fulica and coined the binomial name Fulica cinerea. Gmelin based his description on the "crested gallinule" from China that had been described in 1785 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his A General Synopsis of Birds. The watercock is now the only species placed in the genus Gallicrex that was introduced in 1852 by Edward Blyth. The genus name combines the genus Gallus with the genus Crex. The specific epithet cinerea is from the Latin cinereus meaning "ash-grey". The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.
Traditionally held to be closely related to moorhens (which the adult male visually closely resembles), it is actually a member of a mostly tropical Asian clade containing also Aenigmatolimnas, Amaurornis, Himantornis and Megacrex.
Adult male... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sundarbans National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 2 | Yala National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 3 | Manas National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 4 | Chitwan National Park | 🇳🇵 Nepal | |
| 5 | Keoladeo National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | Kanha National Park | 🇮🇳 India |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Quanzhou | 🇨🇳 China | |
| 2 | Thiruvananthapuram | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 3 | Coimbatore | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 4 | Vasai-Virar | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 5 | Ponnani | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | Kochi | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 7 | Thrissur | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 8 | Tamluk | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 9 | Phnom Penh | 🇰🇭 Cambodia | |
| 10 | Kolkata | 🇮🇳 India |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Watercock sighting in Yala National Park on a given day, based on 19 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 181st most-seen of the 220 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, if each day is a fresh chance.
April
In that month about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Watercock in Yala National Park on a given day, against under 5% in May to March, the lowest months.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Watercock sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Among the best
Of the 6 parks where we can rate Watercock sightings, Yala National Park ranks 2nd at under 5%, level with the leaders once rounded. The best odds are in Sundarbans National Park (India, under 5%).
Same family: Rallidae
The closest relatives of the Watercock that you can see in Yala National Park (family Rallidae, Rails, Gallinules, and Coots) are White-breasted Waterhen (about 40%) and Western Swamphen (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Watercock is recorded against all the birds logged in Yala National Park (19 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.
