Tchagra tchagra
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~50% in a week ~80%
The southern tchagra (Tchagra tchagra) is a passerine bird found in dense scrub and coastal bush in southern and south-eastern South Africa and Eswatini. This species is a bushshrike, a group closely related to the true shrikes in the family Laniidae, and formerly included in that family.
The southern tchagra is 17–21 cm in length. It has a brown crown and black eye stripes separated by a broad white supercilium. The underparts are pale grey and the upperparts pale brown. The folded wings are chestnut and the tail is black, tipped white. The longish bill is black. The sexes are similar, but young birds are duller and have a buff stripe through the eye. This species is similar to the black-crowned tchagra, but that species is larger, and the adult, as its name implies, has a black rather than brown crown.
An identification pitfall is that juvenile black-crowned tchagra has a brown crown. It can be separated from southern tchagra by its larger size, relatively shorter bill and paler underparts. There are three fairly similar subspecies of southern tchagra. Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | De Hoop Nature Reserve | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 2 | Addo Elephant National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 3 | Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 4 | Garden Route National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 5 | uMkhuze Game Reserve | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Durban | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Southern Tchagra sighting in Addo Elephant National Park on a given day, based on 159 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 52nd most-seen of the 243 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 50%, and over a week to about 80%, if each day is a fresh chance.
May and October
In those months about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Southern Tchagra in Addo Elephant National Park on a given day, against about 20% in June–September and November–April, the lowest months.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Southern Tchagra sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
2nd of 5
Of the 5 parks where we can rate Southern Tchagra sightings, Addo Elephant National Park ranks 2nd at about 20%. The best odds are in De Hoop Nature Reserve (South Africa, about 40%).
Same family: Malaconotidae
The closest relatives of the Southern Tchagra that you can see in Addo Elephant National Park (family Malaconotidae, Bushshrikes and Allies) are Southern Boubou (about 50%), Bokmakierie (about 50%) and Olive Bushshrike (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Southern Tchagra is recorded against all the birds logged in Addo Elephant National Park (159 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.
