Painted Sandgrouse

The painted sandgrouse is a medium-large sandgrouse found in India and Pakistan. The sexes are coloured differently. The male has an orange bill, a black bar across a white forehead, fine black lines along the nape, a white patch of bare skin around the eye and a broad black and white band around the chest (Wikipedia, general species account).

It lives in dry regions in rough grassland, rocky areas and scrub and feeds mainly on seeds. It is gregarious, and groups gather at waterholes to drink. SoIB 2023 treats it as endemic to the Indian subcontinent, rates it a Moderate conservation priority, and gives a Moderate range of about 209,000 km² and insufficient data on trends (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).