Stenostira scita
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~30%
The fairy flycatcher or fairy warbler (Stenostira scita) is a small passerine bird. Formerly placed in the Old World flycatcher family, Muscicapidae, it is now separated with some other "odd flycatchers" as the new family Stenostiridae (Beresford et al. 2005, Fuchs et al. 2006). It is the only member of the genus Stenostira.
It is an endemic resident breeder in southern Africa in Botswana, South Africa, Lesotho and Namibia, and a vagrant to Zimbabwe and Eswatini. Stenostira scita is a common seasonal migrant, breeding in karoo scrub and fynbos in the southern highlands, and migrating north in to spend the southern winter in thorn scrub at lower altitudes.
The fairy flycatcher is 11–12 cm in length. The adult is pale grey above with a black mask through the eye and a white supercilium. The wings are black with a long white stripe, and the long black tail has white sides. The throat is white, the breast is pale grey, and the belly is white with a pinkish-grey wash to its centre. The sexes are alike, but the juvenile is browner than the adult. The eye is brown and the bill and legs are black.
The fairy flycatcher is monogamous unless its mate dies, when... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Golden Gate Highlands National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
More parks will be added in future updates.
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Johannesburg | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 2 | Pretoria | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Fairy Flycatcher sighting in Johannesburg on a given day, based on 152 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 90th 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 September
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Fairy Flycatcher in Johannesburg on a given day, against under 5% in October to April, the lowest months. Those are among Johannesburg's driest months, with about 10 mm of rain a month against 130 mm in December.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Fairy Flycatcher sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Yes
Of the 2 cities where we can rate Fairy Flycatcher sightings, Johannesburg has the highest daily chance: under 5%. Next come Pretoria (South Africa, under 5%).
Same order: Passeriformes
The closest relatives of the Fairy Flycatcher that you can see in Johannesburg (order Passeriformes, Perching Birds) are Southern Masked Weaver (about 80%), Common Bulbul (about 80%) and Cape Sparrow (about 80%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Fairy Flycatcher is recorded against all the birds logged in Johannesburg (152 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.
