Terpsiphone viridis
Silhouette: PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~20%
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 |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report an African Paradise-Flycatcher sighting in Etosha National Park on a given day, based on 51 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 170th most-seen of the 260 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 20%, if each day is a fresh chance.
November
In that month about 20% of wildlife watchers report an African Paradise-Flycatcher in Etosha National Park on a given day, against under 5% in January to October, the lowest months. That is one of Etosha National Park's driest months, with about 10 mm of rain against 75 mm in January.
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.
50th of 51
Of the 51 parks where we can rate African Paradise-Flycatcher sightings, Etosha National Park ranks 50th at under 5%. The best odds are in Arusha National Park (Tanzania, about 50%), Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (Uganda, about 40%) and Nairobi National Park (Kenya, about 40%). All parks ranked.
Same order: Passeriformes
The closest relatives of the African Paradise-Flycatcher that you can see in Etosha National Park (order Passeriformes, Perching Birds) are Fork-tailed Drongo (about 80%), Red-shouldered Glossy-starling (about 70%) and African Red-eyed Bulbul (about 60%), 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 Etosha National Park (51 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.
