Acrocephalus arundinaceus
Silhouette: Yves Hoebeke · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~30%
The great reed warbler (Acrocephalus arundinaceus) is an insectivorous bird in the family Acrocephalidae. It is a medium-sized passerine bird and the largest of the warblers. It breeds throughout mainland Europe and the Western Palearctic and migrates to sub-Saharan Africa in the winter. It favours reed beds during the breeding season, while living in reed beds, bush thickets, rice fields, and forest clearings during the winter. It exhibits relatively low sexual dimorphism, and the sexes are similar in appearance. This species mates both polygynously and monogamously.
The great reed warbler was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with the thrushes in the genus Turdus and coined the binomial name Turdus arundinaceus. He specified the type locality as Northern Europe. Linnaeus based his entry on the Turdus musicus palustris or Bruch Beiden Rohr Drossel that had been described in 1750 by the German naturalist Jacob Theodor Klein in his book Historiae avium prodromus. The specific epithet arundinaceus is Latin meaning "like a reed" (hence "of the reeds"), from arundo, arundinis meaning...
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fertő-Hanság National Park | 🇭🇺 Hungary | |
| 2 | Białowieża National Park | 🇵🇱 Poland | |
| 3 | Kiskunság National Park | 🇭🇺 Hungary | |
| 4 | Hortobágy National Park | 🇭🇺 Hungary | |
| 5 | Biebrza National Park | 🇵🇱 Poland | |
| 6 | Camargue | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 7 | Monfragüe National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 8 | Bavarian Forest National Park | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 9 | Doñana National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 10 | Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary | 🇸🇳 Senegal | |
| 11 | Sierra Nevada National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 12 | Tsavo West National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 13 | Nairobi National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 14 | Wadden Sea National Park | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 15 | Kruger National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Great Reed-Warbler sighting in Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary on a given day, based on 8 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 164th most-seen of the 173 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
February
In that month about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Great Reed-Warbler in Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary on a given day, against under 5% in March–April and November–January, the lowest months. That is one of Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary's driest months, with almost no rain against 55 mm in August. May to October have too few records to rate.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Great Reed-Warbler sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
10th of 15
Of the 15 parks where we can rate Great Reed-Warbler sightings, Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary ranks 10th at under 5%. The best odds are in Fertő-Hanság National Park (Hungary, about 40%), Białowieża National Park (Poland, about 30%) and Kiskunság National Park (Hungary, about 30%). All parks ranked.
Same genus: Acrocephalus
The closest relatives of the Great Reed-Warbler that you can see in Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary (genus Acrocephalus, Reed Warblers) are Eurasian Reed-Warbler (about 30%), Sedge Warbler (about 30%) and Greater Swamp Warbler (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Great Reed-Warbler is recorded against all the birds logged in Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary (8 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.
