Euplectes macroura
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~30% in a week ~60%
The yellow-mantled widowbird (Euplectes macroura), also known as the yellow-backed widow, is a species of bird in the family Ploceidae. The yellow-mantled widowbird was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the crossbills in the genus Loxia and coined the binomial name Loxia macroura. Gmelin specified the locality as "Whydah"; this is Ouidah on the coast of Benin in West Africa. The specific epithet is from Ancient Greek makros meaning "long" and -ouros meaning "tailed". The yellow-mantled widowbird is now one of 18 species placed in the genus Euplectes that was introduced in 1829 by the English naturalist William Swainson.
Males are larger than females and acquire longer tails and striking black and golden yellow plumages in the breeding... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Odzala-Kokoua National Park | 🇨🇬 Republic of the Congo | |
| 2 | Masai Mara National Reserve | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 3 | Kafue National Park | 🇿🇲 Zambia | |
| 4 | Bale Mountains National Park | 🇪🇹 Ethiopia | |
| 5 | Murchison Falls National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 6 | Serengeti National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Harare | 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Yellow-shouldered Widowbird sighting in Harare on a given day, based on 80 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 72nd most-seen of the 213 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 30%, and over a week to about 60%, if each day is a fresh chance.
January
In that month about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Yellow-shouldered Widowbird in Harare on a given day, against under 5% in April and June–October, the lowest months. That is one of Harare's wettest months, with about 180 mm of rain against almost none in August.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Yellow-shouldered Widowbird sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 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 Yellow-shouldered Widowbird sightings: about 10% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same genus: Euplectes
The closest relatives of the Yellow-shouldered Widowbird that you can see in Harare (genus Euplectes, Bishops and Widowbirds) are Red Bishop (about 20%), Red-collared Widowbird (about 20%) and Yellow-rumped Widowbird (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Yellow-shouldered Widowbird is recorded against all the birds logged in Harare (80 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.
