Cisticola erythrops
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
The red-faced cisticola (Cisticola erythrops) is a species of bird in the family Cisticolidae. It is widely present across sub-Saharan Africa (rare in southern Africa). Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical seasonally wet or flooded lowland grassland and swamps.
The red-faced cisticola was formally described in 1857 by the German ornithologist Gustav Hartlaub under the binomial name Drymoeca erythrops based on a specimen collected near Calabar in Nigeria. The specific epithet erythrops combines the Ancient Greek ερυθρος/eruthros meaning "red" with ωψ/ōps meaning "eye" or "face". The red-faced cisticola is now one of 53 species placed in the genus Cisticola that was introduced in 1829 by the German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup.
Six subspecies are recognised: Cisticola erythrops erythrops (Hartlaub, 1857) – Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia to Central African Republic, Congo and Gabon Cisticola erythrops pyrrhomitra Reichenow, 1916 – southeast Sudan and Ethiopia
Cisticola erythrops niloticus Madarász, G, 1914 – central Sudan Cisticola erythrops sylvia Reichenow, 1904 – northeast DR Congo and south Sudan to Kenya and central Tanzania Cisticola erythrops nyasa Lynes... Wikipedia →
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Red-faced Cisticola sighting in Kigali on a given day, based on 161 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 76th most-seen of the 244 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 40%, and over a week to about 70%, if each day is a fresh chance.
March–April, June, September and November
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Red-faced Cisticola in Kigali on a given day, against about 10% in May, July–August, October and December–February, the lowest months.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Red-faced Cisticola sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
4th of 10
Of the 10 cities where we can rate Red-faced Cisticola sightings, Kigali ranks 4th at about 10%. The best odds are in Yaoundé (Cameroon, about 30%), Nairobi (Kenya, about 20%) and Harare (Zimbabwe, about 20%).
Same genus: Cisticola
The closest relatives of the Red-faced Cisticola that you can see in Kigali (genus Cisticola, Cisticolas) are Winding Cisticola (about 40%), Trilling Cisticola (about 10%) and Chubb's Cisticola (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Red-faced Cisticola is recorded against all the birds logged in Kigali (161 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.
