Salpornis salvadori
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days <5% in a week ~10%
The African spotted creeper (Salpornis salvadori) is a small passerine bird in the family Salpornithidae. It is found in subsaharan Africa in open deciduous forest and mango groves. It does not migrate other than local movements.
The African spotted creeper has strongly spotted and barred plumage, closely similar to the Indian spotted creeper, but clearly different from the treecreepers in the genus Certhia. It weighs up to 16 grams (0.56 oz), twice as much as treecreepers of similar length [up to 15 cm (5.9 in)].
The African spotted creeper has a long, thin, pointed down-curved bill, which it uses to extricate insects from bark, but it lacks the stiff tail feathers which the Certhia treecreepers use to support themselves on vertical trees.
This species and the Indian spotted creeper were formerly considered conspecific and called the spotted creeper. Four distinct subspecies are accepted within the distribution of the African spotted creeper, listed from northwest to southeast: Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|
More parks will be added in future updates.
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Harare | 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report an African Spotted-Creeper sighting in Harare on a given day, based on 7 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 186th most-seen of the 213 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.
October
In that month about 10% of wildlife watchers report an African Spotted-Creeper in Harare on a given day, against under 5% in November to September, the lowest months. That is one of Harare's driest months, with about 25 mm of rain against 200 mm in December.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most African Spotted-Creeper 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 Harare, in our data
Harare is the only city on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate African Spotted-Creeper sightings: under 5% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same order: Passeriformes
The closest relatives of the African Spotted-Creeper that you can see in Harare (order Passeriformes, Perching Birds) are Common Bulbul (about 90%), Pied Crow (about 90%) and Blue-breasted Cordonbleu (about 70%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the African Spotted-Creeper is recorded against all the birds logged in Harare (7 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.
