Euplectes axillaris
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~40%
The fan-tailed widowbird (Euplectes axillaris), also known as the red-shouldered widowbird, is a species of bird in the family Ploceidae, which is native to grassy and swampy areas of the tropical and subtropical Afrotropics.
It is found in Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, DRC, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
(Fan-tailed widowbird = ) Red-shouldered widowbird - Species text in The Atlas of Southern African... Wikipedia →
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Fan-tailed Widowbird sighting in Maputo on a given day, based on 20 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 68th most-seen of the 115 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 40%, if each day is a fresh chance.
February and December
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Fan-tailed Widowbird in Maputo on a given day, against under 5% in April–August and November, the lowest months. Those are among Maputo's wettest months, with about 110 mm of rain a month against 15 mm in August.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Fan-tailed 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.
2nd of 4
Of the 4 cities where we can rate Fan-tailed Widowbird sightings, Maputo ranks 2nd at about 10%. The best odds are in Kigali (Rwanda, about 40%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Fan-tailed Widowbird is recorded against all the birds logged in Maputo (20 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.
