Psalidoprocne obscura
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~40%
The Fanti saw-wing (Psalidoprocne obscura), also known as the Fanti rough-winged swallow, is a small passerine bird in the swallow family. The Fanti saw-wing is often described as the most beautiful of the swallows, owing to its uniformly shimmering green plumage.
This is a small swallow at 17 cm. Its plumage is glossy green. The tail is long and deeply forked. Sexes are similar, but the female has a shorter tail. Juveniles are brown with little gloss, and have short tails. The Fanti saw-wing breeds in the lowlands of southern west Africa from Senegal to Cameroon. It is mainly resident, apart from seasonal movements. This bird is found in open country, including light woodland, near water.
Fanti saw-wings are graceful flyers and they generally feed on insects, including beetles, while airborne. They are typically seen low over water or grassland. The lined nests are built in a 60 cm burrow in a vertical bank. The clutch is two eggs.
Birds of The Gambia by Barlow, Wacher and Disley, ISBN 1-873403-32-1 Swallows and Martins by Turner and Rose ISBN 0-7470-3202-5 Wikipedia →
Song0:53
Gambia · 2018
© Peter Boesman · XC425262 · CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|
More parks will be added in future updates.
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Freetown | 🇸🇱 Sierra Leone | |
| 2 | Serrekunda | 🇬🇲 Gambia | |
| 3 | Abidjan | 🇨🇮 Côte d'Ivoire |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Fanti Sawwing sighting in Abidjan on a given day, based on 6 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 45th most-seen of the 58 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.
April
In that month about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Fanti Sawwing in Abidjan on a given day, against under 5% in May and July–March, the lowest months.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Fanti Sawwing sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
3rd of 3
Of the 3 cities where we can rate Fanti Sawwing sightings, Abidjan ranks 3rd at about 10%. The best odds are in Freetown (Sierra Leone, about 20%) and Serrekunda (Gambia, about 10%).
Same family: Hirundinidae
The closest relatives of the Fanti Sawwing that you can see in Abidjan (family Hirundinidae, Swallows and Martins) are Barn Swallow (about 10%), Lesser Striped-Swallow (about 10%) and Ethiopian Swallow (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Fanti Sawwing is recorded against all the birds logged in Abidjan (6 verified sightings), 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.
