Pachyramphus niger
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~80% in a week >90%
The Jamaican becard (Pachyramphus niger) is a species of bird in the family Tityridae, the tityras, becards, and allies. It is endemic to Jamaica. The Jamaican becard was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the shrikes in the genus Lanius and coined the binomial name Lanius niger. Gmelin based his description on the "black shrike" that had been described in 1781 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his book A General Synopsis of Birds. Latham had received two specimens from Jamaica.
The Jamaican becard and some other becards were for a time placed in genus Platypsaris which was merged into Pachyramphus in 1973. It is now one of 18 becards in genus Pachyramphus that had been introduced in 1839 by George Gray. The genus Pachyramphus has variously been assigned to the tyrant flycatcher family Tyrannidae and the cotinga family Cotingidae. Several early twenty-first century studies confirmed the placement of Pachyramphus in Tityridae and taxonomic systems made the reassignment. In 1998 the American Ornithological Society... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park | 🇯🇲 Jamaica |
More parks will be added in future updates.
Likely
About 50% of wildlife watchers report a Jamaican Becard sighting in Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park on a given day, based on 416 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 28th most-seen of the 91 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 80%, and over a week to over 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
April and July
In those months about 60% of wildlife watchers report a Jamaican Becard in Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park on a given day, against about 40% in January–February, May and August–November, the lowest months. June has too few records to rate.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Jamaican Becard sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park, in our data
Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park is the only park on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Jamaican Becard sightings: about 50% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same order: Passeriformes
The closest relatives of the Jamaican Becard that you can see in Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park (order Passeriformes, Perching Birds) are White-chinned Thrush (about 90%), Bananaquit (about 90%) and Orangequit (about 90%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Jamaican Becard is recorded against all the birds logged in Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park (416 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.
