Progne chalybea
Silhouette: Andy Wilson · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~50% in a week ~80%
The grey-breasted martin (Progne chalybea) is a large swallow from Central and South America. In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the grey-breasted martin in the second volume of his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Cayenne, French Guiana. He used the French name L'hirondelle de Cayenne and the Latin name Hirundo Cayanensis. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. The grey-breasted martin was subsequently described by the French polymath, the Comte de Buffon, in 1779 and by the English ornithologist John Latham in 1783. Latham used the English name "Chalybeate swallow" but neither Buffon nor Latham introduced a scientific name.
The German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin included the grey-breasted martin when he revised and expanded Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae in 1789. He placed it with the swallows in the genus Hirundo and coined the binomial name Hirundo chalybea. The specific epithet chalybea is Latin meaning "steely". The grey-breasted martin is now one of nine species placed in the... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Belém | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 2 | São Luís | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 3 | Guayaquil | 🇪🇨 Ecuador | |
| 4 | Fortaleza | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 5 | Panama City | 🇵🇦 Panama | |
| 6 | Buenos Aires | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 7 | Natal | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 8 | Asuncion | 🇵🇾 Paraguay | |
| 9 | Salvador | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 10 | San Salvador | 🇸🇻 El Salvador |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Gray-breasted Martin sighting in Coiba National Park on a given day, based on 47 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 41st most-seen of the 118 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 50%, and over a week to about 80%, if each day is a fresh chance.
June
In that month about 40% of wildlife watchers report a Gray-breasted Martin in Coiba National Park on a given day, against about 10% in April, August and November, the lowest months. That is one of Coiba National Park's wettest months, with about 510 mm of rain against 35 mm in February. May and October have too few records to rate.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Gray-breasted Martin sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
13th of 68
Of the 68 parks where we can rate Gray-breasted Martin sightings, Coiba National Park ranks 13th at about 20%. The best odds are in Soberanía National Park (Panama, about 50%), Machalilla National Park (Ecuador, about 40%) and San Lorenzo Protected Forest (Panama, about 40%). All parks ranked.
Same family: Hirundinidae
The closest relatives of the Gray-breasted Martin that you can see in Coiba National Park (family Hirundinidae, Swallows and Martins) are Mangrove Swallow (about 10%) and Barn Swallow (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Gray-breasted Martin is recorded against all the birds logged in Coiba National Park (47 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), 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.
