Tchagra tchagra
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days <5% in a week ~10%
The southern tchagra (Tchagra tchagra) is a passerine bird found in dense scrub and coastal bush in southern and south-eastern South Africa and Eswatini. This species is a bushshrike, a group closely related to the true shrikes in the family Laniidae, and formerly included in that family.
The southern tchagra is 17–21 cm in length. It has a brown crown and black eye stripes separated by a broad white supercilium. The underparts are pale grey and the upperparts pale brown. The folded wings are chestnut and the tail is black, tipped white. The longish bill is black. The sexes are similar, but young birds are duller and have a buff stripe through the eye. This species is similar to the black-crowned tchagra, but that species is larger, and the adult, as its name implies, has a black rather than brown crown.
An identification pitfall is that juvenile black-crowned tchagra has a brown crown. It can be separated from southern tchagra by its larger size, relatively shorter bill and paler underparts. There are three fairly similar subspecies of southern tchagra. Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | De Hoop Nature Reserve | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 2 | Addo Elephant National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 3 | Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 4 | Garden Route National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 5 | uMkhuze Game Reserve | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Durban | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Southern Tchagra sighting in Garden Route National Park on a given day, based on 19 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 188th most-seen of the 222 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to under 5%, and over a week to about 10%, if each day is a fresh chance.
February
In that month about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Southern Tchagra in Garden Route National Park on a given day, against under 5% in March to January, the lowest months.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Southern Tchagra sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
4th of 5
Of the 5 parks where we can rate Southern Tchagra sightings, Garden Route National Park ranks 4th at under 5%. The best odds are in De Hoop Nature Reserve (South Africa, about 40%), Addo Elephant National Park (South Africa, about 20%) and Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park (South Africa, under 5%).
Same family: Malaconotidae
The closest relatives of the Southern Tchagra that you can see in Garden Route National Park (family Malaconotidae, Bushshrikes and Allies) are Southern Boubou (about 40%), Black-backed Puffback (about 30%) and Olive Bushshrike (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Southern Tchagra is recorded against all the birds logged in Garden Route National Park (19 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.
