Psalidoprocne pristoptera
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~30%
The black saw-wing (Psalidoprocne pristoptera), also known as the blue saw-wing or black rough-winged swallow, is a small passerine bird in the swallow family. The black rough-winged swallow breeds in open wooded habitats, and has a preference for wetter areas, although some races occur in mountain grassland habitat. It breeds across Africa from eastern Nigeria and Ethiopia south to Angola, northern Zimbabwe and northern Mozambique. The subspecies P. p. holomelaena breeds down south-eastern Africa from southern Mozambique to the Cape in South Africa.
This species is mainly resident, apart from seasonal local or altitudinal movements, but P. p. holomelaena is migratory, spending the southern winter north of the breeding range. The nominate race P. p. pristoptera of the mountains of northern Ethiopia moves south after breeding.
The black rough-winged swallow is a small swallow at 13–15 cm length with a forked tail. Its plumage is blue-glossed black. Sexes are similar, but the female has shorter outer tail feathers, and less obvious wing serrations. Juveniles are brown with little gloss, and have short tails.
There are many subspecies of... Wikipedia →
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Black Sawwing sighting in Durban on a given day, based on 42 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 108th most-seen of the 219 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
May to July
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Black Sawwing in Durban on a given day, against under 5% in August to April, the lowest months. Those are among Durban's driest months, with about 35 mm of rain a month against 210 mm in January.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Black 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 7
Of the 7 cities where we can rate Black Sawwing sightings, Durban ranks 3rd at under 5%. The best odds are in Yaoundé (Cameroon, about 30%) and Nairobi (Kenya, about 10%).
Same family: Hirundinidae
The closest relatives of the Black Sawwing that you can see in Durban (family Hirundinidae, Swallows and Martins) are Lesser Striped-Swallow (about 10%) and Barn Swallow (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Black Sawwing is recorded against all the birds logged in Durban (42 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.
