Circus macrosceles
Silhouette: Shyamal · PhyloPic
In 3 days <5% in a week ~10%
The Malagasy harrier (Circus macrosceles) is a bird of prey belonging to the marsh harrier group of harriers. It inhabits Madagascar and the Comoro Islands in the Indian Ocean. It was formerly regarded as a subspecies of the Réunion harrier (C. maillardi) but is increasingly treated as a separate species. It is also known as the Madagascar harrier, Madagascar marsh harrier or Malagasy marsh harrier.
It is about 42–55 cm (17–22 in) long; the female is up to 13% larger than the male. The male has a blackish back and a greyer head with dark streaks. The underparts and rump are whitish and the tail is grey with dark bars. The forewings and wingtips are blackish while the secondaries are grey with dark bars. Females are browner than the males.
The Réunion harrier is smaller and darker with shorter legs and shorter, more rounded wings. Males have a blacker head and plainer secondaries and tail. In Madagascar it is found in marshland and grassland across the island except for the south. It is generally scarce with the largest numbers in the north-west. It occurs from sea-level up to 1,800 m (5,900 ft). On the Comoros it is more often found in... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|
More parks will be added in future updates.
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Antananarivo | 🇲🇬 Madagascar |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Malagasy Harrier sighting in Antananarivo on a given day, based on 6 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 61st most-seen of the 69 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to under 5%, and over a week to about 10%, if each day is a fresh chance.
April
In that month about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Malagasy Harrier in Antananarivo on a given day, against under 5% in May to March, the lowest months.
Between 6 and 9 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Malagasy Harrier sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Antananarivo, in our data
Antananarivo is the only city on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Malagasy Harrier sightings: under 5% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Malagasy Harrier is recorded against all the birds logged in Antananarivo (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.
