Falco alopex
Silhouette: Shyamal · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
The fox kestrel (Falco alopex) is a bird of prey belonging to the falcon family Falconidae. It is found in arid, open country in the northern part of Sub-Saharan Africa. It is a large, slender kestrel with long, narrow wings and tail. It is 32–38 cm (13–15 in) long with a wingspan of 76–88 cm (30–35 in) and a weight of 250–300 g (8.8–10.6 oz). The female is 3% larger than the male. The plumage is dark rufous above and below with black streaks. The tail is narrowly barred with black while the flight feathers of the wing are dark and unbarred. The underwings are pale, contrasting with the darker body. The eye is yellow-brown unlike the similar greater kestrel which has whitish eyes as well as paler plumage, barred flight feathers and grey on the tail.
Juvenile fox kestrels have heavier streaking than the adults and clearer barring on the tail. The species has a high, screeching call, but is usually silent outside the breeding season. It breeds in the savanna region south of the Sahara from Mali eastwards as far as Ethiopia and north-west Kenya. It occasionally wanders west to Senegal, the Gambia and Guinea and south to the Democratic Republic... Wikipedia →
Call1:08
Burkina Faso · 2017
© Étienne Leroy · XC378470 · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kidepo Valley National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda |
More parks will be added in future updates.
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Fox Kestrel sighting in Kidepo Valley National Park on a given day, based on 57 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 110th most-seen of the 332 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 40%, and over a week to about 70%, if each day is a fresh chance.
January–February, June and September–November
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Fox Kestrel in Kidepo Valley National Park on a given day, against about 10% in March, July–August and December, the lowest months. April and May have too few records to rate.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Fox Kestrel sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Kidepo Valley National Park, in our data
Kidepo Valley National Park is the only park on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Fox Kestrel sightings: about 20% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same genus: Falco
The closest relatives of the Fox Kestrel that you can see in Kidepo Valley National Park (genus Falco, Typical Falcons) are Grey Kestrel (about 20%), Common Kestrel (about 10%) and Lesser Kestrel (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Fox Kestrel is recorded against all the birds logged in Kidepo Valley National Park (57 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.
