Lagonosticta rubricata
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~30%
The African firefinch (Lagonosticta rubricata), also called the blue-billed firefinch, is a common species of estrildid finch found in many parts of Africa. It has an estimated global extent of occurrence of 5,400,000 km2 (2,100,000 mi2).
The African firefinch was formally described in 1823 by the German naturalist Hinrich Lichtenstein. He placed it with the finches in the genus Fringilla and coined the binomial name Fringilla rubricata. Lichtenstein gave the locality as "terra Caffrorum". This has been restricted to the town of Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The specific epithet rubricata is from Latin rubricatus meaning "orange-red" or "ruddy". The African firefinch is now placed in the genus Lagonosticta that was introduced in 1851 by Jean Cabanis. An alternative common name for this species is the blue-billed firefinch.
Five subspecies are recognised. Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Freetown | 🇸🇱 Sierra Leone | |
| 2 | Dar es-Salaam | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 3 | Kampala | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 4 | Nairobi | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 5 | Durban | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report an African Firefinch sighting in Kruger National Park on a given day, based on 335 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 221st most-seen of the 464 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
July–August and October
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report an African Firefinch in Kruger National Park on a given day, against under 5% in September and November–June, the lowest months. Those are among Kruger National Park's driest months, with about 15 mm of rain a month against 110 mm in February.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most African Firefinch sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
15th of 30
Of the 30 parks where we can rate African Firefinch sightings, Kruger National Park ranks 15th at under 5%. The best odds are in Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park (South Africa, about 10%), Ruaha National Park (Tanzania, about 10%) and Mikumi National Park (Tanzania, about 10%).
Same genus: Lagonosticta
The closest relatives of the African Firefinch that you can see in Kruger National Park (genus Lagonosticta, Firefinches) are Red-billed Firefinch (about 20%) and Jameson's Firefinch (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the African Firefinch is recorded against all the birds logged in Kruger National Park (335 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.
