Terpsiphone viridis
Silhouette: PhyloPic
In 3 days ~80% in a week >90%
The African paradise flycatcher (Terpsiphone viridis) is a medium-sized passerine bird. The two central tail feathers of the male are extended into streamers that commonly are more than twice as long as the body. The female tail feathers are of moderate length and without streamers. The upper parts of the male body, wings, and tail are boldly coloured in chestnut or rusty shades, but the underparts and the head are variably grey to blue-gray, with the head of the mature male being darker, commonly glossy black with greenish highlights. The beak and other bare areas, including a wattle ring round the eye, match the colour of the surrounding feathers. The female coloration is similar, though not so showy and glossy and with the head paler.
The African paradise flycatcher feeds mainly on insects. It builds a neat cup nest in which it lays a clutch, usually of two or three eggs. It generally inhabits open forest and savanna, and is a locally common resident breeder in Africa south of the Sahara. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has listed it as being of "least concern".
This is the original bird known as ọ̀kín in Yorùbá language instead of the peacock. Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kigali | 🇷🇼 Rwanda | |
| 2 | Ouagadougou | 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso | |
| 3 | Nairobi | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 4 | Abuja | 🇳🇬 Nigeria | |
| 5 | Zanzibar City | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 6 | Mombasa | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 7 | Addis Ababa | 🇪🇹 Ethiopia | |
| 8 | Serrekunda | 🇬🇲 Gambia | |
| 9 | Harare | 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe | |
| 10 | Yaoundé | 🇨🇲 Cameroon |
Likely
About 40% of wildlife watchers report an African Paradise-Flycatcher sighting in Nairobi on a given day, based on 676 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 14th most-seen of the 234 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 80%, and over a week to over 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
June–July, September–October and December–January
In those months about 50% of wildlife watchers report an African Paradise-Flycatcher in Nairobi on a given day, against about 30% in November, the lowest month.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most African Paradise-Flycatcher sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
3rd of 21
Of the 21 cities where we can rate African Paradise-Flycatcher sightings, Nairobi ranks 3rd at about 40%. The best odds are in Kigali (Rwanda, about 60%) and Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso, about 60%).
Same order: Passeriformes
The closest relatives of the African Paradise-Flycatcher that you can see in Nairobi (order Passeriformes, Perching Birds) are Common Bulbul (about 80%), Abyssinian Thrush (about 70%) and Pied Crow (about 70%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the African Paradise-Flycatcher is recorded against all the birds logged in Nairobi (676 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.
