Cypsiurus parvus
Silhouette: Aviceda (vectorized by T. Michael Keesey) · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~60% in a week ~90%
The African palm swift (Cypsiurus parvus) is a small swift. It is very similar to the Asian palm swift, Cypsiurus balasiensis, and was formerly considered to be the same species. The Malagasy palm swift was also recently split from this species. This is a common species with a very wide distribution which faces no obvious threats and may be increasing in numbers as a result of the cultivation of the exotic Washington palm, so the International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated its conservation status as being of "least concern".
This 16 cm long species is mainly pale brown in colour. It has long swept-back wings that resemble a crescent or a boomerang. The body is slender, and the tail is long and deeply forked, although it is usually held closed. The call is a loud, shrill scream. Sexes are similar, and young birds differ mainly in their shorter tails. Palm swifts have very short legs which they use only for clinging to vertical surfaces, since swifts never settle voluntarily on the ground.
The African palm swift is native to Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Democratic Republic... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brazzaville | 🇨🇬 Republic of the Congo | |
| 2 | Maputo | 🇲🇿 Mozambique | |
| 3 | Mombasa | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 4 | Serrekunda | 🇬🇲 Gambia | |
| 5 | Dar es-Salaam | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 6 | Harare | 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe | |
| 7 | Abidjan | 🇨🇮 Côte d'Ivoire | |
| 8 | N'Djamena | 🇹🇩 Chad | |
| 9 | Lusaka | 🇿🇲 Zambia | |
| 10 | Zanzibar City | 🇹🇿 Tanzania |
Possible
About 30% of wildlife watchers report an African Palm-Swift sighting in Etosha National Park on a given day, based on 459 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 39th most-seen of the 260 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 60%, and over a week to about 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
September and November
In those months about 40% of wildlife watchers report an African Palm-Swift in Etosha National Park on a given day, against about 10% in March and June, the lowest months. Those are among Etosha National Park's driest months, with about 5 mm of rain a month against 75 mm in January.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most African Palm-Swift sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
20th of 51
Of the 51 parks where we can rate African Palm-Swift sightings, Etosha National Park ranks 20th at about 30%. The best odds are in Niokolo-Koba National Park (Senegal, about 80%), Murchison Falls National Park (Uganda, about 60%) and Nairobi National Park (Kenya, about 50%). All parks ranked.
Same family: Apodidae
The closest relatives of the African Palm-Swift that you can see in Etosha National Park (family Apodidae, Swifts) are Little Swift (about 20%) and Common Swift (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the African Palm-Swift is recorded against all the birds logged in Etosha National Park (459 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.
