Crithagra flaviventris
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~50%
The yellow canary (Crithagra flaviventris) is a small passerine bird in the true finch family. It is a resident breeder in much of the western and central regions of southern Africa and has been introduced to Ascension and St Helena islands.
The yellow canary was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the crossbills in the genus Loxia and coined the binomial name Loxia flaviventris. He specified the location as the Cape of Good Hope. The specific epithet flaviventris is from Latin flavus meaning "yellow" and venter (genitive ventris) meaning "belly". Gmelin based his account on the "Le Gros-bec jaune du Cap de Bonne Espérance" that had been described and illustrated in 1760 by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson.
The yellow canary was formerly placed in the genus Serinus but a phylogenetic study published in 2012 found that the genus was polyphyletic. In the reorganisation to create monophyletic genera, Serinus was split and a number of species including the yellow canary were moved to the resurrected genus Crithagra that had originally... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | West Coast National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 2 | Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 3 | De Hoop Nature Reserve | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 4 | Namib-Naukluft National Park | 🇳🇦 Namibia | |
| 5 | Etosha National Park | 🇳🇦 Namibia | |
| 6 | Pilanesberg National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 7 | Moremi Game Reserve | 🇧🇼 Botswana | |
| 8 | Addo Elephant National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 9 | Garden Route National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 10 | Chobe National Park | 🇧🇼 Botswana | |
| 11 | Kruger National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pretoria | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 2 | Johannesburg | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 3 | Cape Town | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Yellow Canary sighting in Etosha National Park on a given day, based on 136 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 117th most-seen of the 260 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 50%, if each day is a fresh chance.
June to February
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Yellow Canary in Etosha National Park on a given day, against under 5% in March to May, the lowest months.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Yellow Canary sightings with a recorded time, and nearly all of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
5th of 11
Of the 11 parks where we can rate Yellow Canary sightings, Etosha National Park ranks 5th at about 10%. The best odds are in West Coast National Park (South Africa, about 60%), Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (South Africa, about 60%) and De Hoop Nature Reserve (South Africa, about 40%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Yellow Canary is recorded against all the birds logged in Etosha National Park (136 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.
