Progne chalybea
Silhouette: Andy Wilson · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~40%
The grey-breasted martin (Progne chalybea) is a large swallow from Central and South America. In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the grey-breasted martin in the second volume of his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Cayenne, French Guiana. He used the French name L'hirondelle de Cayenne and the Latin name Hirundo Cayanensis. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. The grey-breasted martin was subsequently described by the French polymath, the Comte de Buffon, in 1779 and by the English ornithologist John Latham in 1783. Latham used the English name "Chalybeate swallow" but neither Buffon nor Latham introduced a scientific name.
The German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin included the grey-breasted martin when he revised and expanded Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae in 1789. He placed it with the swallows in the genus Hirundo and coined the binomial name Hirundo chalybea. The specific epithet chalybea is Latin meaning "steely". The grey-breasted martin is now one of nine species placed in the... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Belém | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 2 | São Luís | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 3 | Guayaquil | 🇪🇨 Ecuador | |
| 4 | Fortaleza | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 5 | Panama City | 🇵🇦 Panama | |
| 6 | Buenos Aires | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 7 | Natal | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 8 | Asuncion | 🇵🇾 Paraguay | |
| 9 | Salvador | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 10 | San Salvador | 🇸🇻 El Salvador |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Gray-breasted Martin sighting in Braulio Carrillo National Park on a given day, based on 299 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 181st most-seen of the 505 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 40%, if each day is a fresh chance.
February–June and September–December
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Gray-breasted Martin in Braulio Carrillo National Park on a given day, against under 5% in January and July–August, the lowest months.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Gray-breasted Martin sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
39th of 68
Of the 68 parks where we can rate Gray-breasted Martin sightings, Braulio Carrillo National Park ranks 39th at about 10%. The best odds are in Soberanía National Park (Panama, about 50%), Machalilla National Park (Ecuador, about 40%) and San Lorenzo Protected Forest (Panama, about 40%). All parks ranked.
Same family: Hirundinidae
The closest relatives of the Gray-breasted Martin that you can see in Braulio Carrillo National Park (family Hirundinidae, Swallows and Martins) are Southern Rough-winged Swallow (about 20%), Mangrove Swallow (about 10%) and Blue-and-white Swallow (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Gray-breasted Martin is recorded against all the birds logged in Braulio Carrillo National Park (299 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.
