Euplectes gierowii
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days <5% in a week ~10%
The black bishop (Euplectes gierowii) is a species of passerine bird in the family Ploceidae native to Africa south of the Sahara. Three subspecies are recognised. The black bishop was first described by the German ornithologist Jean Cabanis in 1880 and named after H. Gierow, a Swedish explorer and collector in Angola. It is sometimes placed with E. aureus and E. hordeaceus in a separate genus, Groteiplectes.
A study of the molecular phylogeny of bishops and widowbirds published in 2008 found that it formed part of a clade along with the fire-fronted bishop (E. diadematus), black-winged red bishop (E. hordeaceus), northern red bishop (E. franciscanus), southern red bishop (E. orix), Zanzibar red bishop (E. nigroventris) and red-collared widowbird (E. ardens). An alternate common name is Gierow's bishop.
This subspecies is named after its... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lake Manyara National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 2 | Kibale National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 3 | Ngorongoro Conservation Area | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 4 | Kidepo Valley National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 5 | Tarangire National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 6 | Serengeti National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 7 | Queen Elizabeth National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 8 | Murchison Falls National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 9 | Lake Mburo National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 10 | Bwindi Impenetrable National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kampala | 🇺🇬 Uganda |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Black Bishop sighting in Kampala on a given day, based on 25 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 202nd most-seen of the 332 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.
Any time of year
In every month with enough records, under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Black Bishop in Kampala on a given day, so our monthly data shows no clear season.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Black Bishop 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 Kampala, in our data
Kampala is the only city on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Black Bishop sightings: under 5% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Black Bishop is recorded against all the birds logged in Kampala (25 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.
