Fluvicola pica
Silhouette: Emily Willoughby · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~80% in a week >90%
The pied water tyrant (Fluvicola pica) is a small passerine bird in the tyrant flycatcher family. It is found in Brazil, Colombia, French Guiana, Guyana, Panama, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad, and Venezuela, as a vagrant to Ecuador and possibly other areas as well.
The pied water tyrant was formally described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1779 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux from a specimen collected in Cayenne, French Guiana. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-colored plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Muscicapa pica in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. The pied water tyrant is now placed in the genus Fluvicola that was introduced by the English naturalist William Swainson in 1827. The genus name is derived from a combination of Latin fluvius meaning "river" and -cola meaning "dweller". The specific epithet... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Parque Estadual Encontro das Águas | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 2 | Caroni Swamp | 🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago | |
| 3 | El Impenetrable National Park | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 4 | Iberá National Park | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 5 | Amboró National Park | 🇧🇴 Bolivia | |
| 6 | Henri Pittier National Park | 🇻🇪 Venezuela | |
| 7 | Chapada Diamantina National Park | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 8 | Tambopata National Reserve | 🇵🇪 Peru | |
| 9 | Iguaçu National Park | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 10 | Iguazú National Park | 🇦🇷 Argentina |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Barranquilla | 🇨🇴 Colombia | |
| 2 | Santa Cruz de la Sierra | 🇧🇴 Bolivia | |
| 3 | Rosario | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 4 | Asuncion | 🇵🇾 Paraguay | |
| 5 | Maracaibo | 🇻🇪 Venezuela | |
| 6 | Buenos Aires | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 7 | Panama City | 🇵🇦 Panama | |
| 8 | Valencia | 🇻🇪 Venezuela | |
| 9 | Campo Grande | 🇧🇷 Brazil |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | El Paso Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States |
Likely
About 40% of wildlife watchers report a Pied Water-Tyrant sighting in Caroni Swamp on a given day, based on 237 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 25th most-seen of the 169 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.
July
In that month about 60% of wildlife watchers report a Pied Water-Tyrant in Caroni Swamp on a given day, against about 30% in March–April, June and November–December, the lowest months. That is one of Caroni Swamp's wettest months, with about 120 mm of rain against 25 mm in February.
Between 3 and 6 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Pied Water-Tyrant sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
2nd of 10
Of the 10 parks where we can rate Pied Water-Tyrant sightings, Caroni Swamp ranks 2nd at about 40%. The best odds are in Parque Estadual Encontro das Águas (Brazil, about 60%). All parks ranked.
Same family: Tyrannidae
The closest relatives of the Pied Water-Tyrant that you can see in Caroni Swamp (family Tyrannidae, Tyrant Flycatchers) are Tropical Kingbird (about 60%), Great Kiskadee (about 60%) and Northern Scrub-Flycatcher (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Pied Water-Tyrant is recorded against all the birds logged in Caroni Swamp (237 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.
