Chrysococcyx caprius
Silhouette: Nicolas Huet le Jeune and Jean-Gabriel Prêtre (vectorized by T. Michael Keesey) · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~20%
The diederik cuckoo (Chrysococcyx caprius), formerly dideric cuckoo or didric cuckoo, is a member of the cuckoo family of birds, Cuculidae, which also includes the roadrunners and the anis. The diederik cuckoo was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1780 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux from a specimen collected in the Cape of Good Hope region of South Africa. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Cuculus caprius in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. The diederik cuckoo is now placed in the genus Chrysococcyx that was erected by the German zoologist Friedrich Boie in 1826. The species is monotypic.
The generic name Chrysococcyx combines the Ancient Greek khrusos meaning "gold" and kokkux meaning "cuckoo". The specific epithet caprius is from the Latin cupreus meaning "coppery... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mombasa | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 2 | Ouagadougou | 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso | |
| 3 | Yaoundé | 🇨🇲 Cameroon | |
| 4 | Abidjan | 🇨🇮 Côte d'Ivoire | |
| 5 | Johannesburg | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 6 | Brazzaville | 🇨🇬 Republic of the Congo | |
| 7 | Kampala | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 8 | Pretoria | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 9 | Lagos | 🇳🇬 Nigeria | |
| 10 | Abuja | 🇳🇬 Nigeria |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Dideric Cuckoo sighting in Lower Zambezi National Park on a given day, based on 10 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 198th most-seen of the 241 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.
December and January
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Dideric Cuckoo in Lower Zambezi National Park on a given day, against under 5% in April to October, the lowest months. Those are among Lower Zambezi National Park's wettest months, with about 240 mm of rain a month against almost none in September. February and March have too few records to rate.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Dideric Cuckoo sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
34th of 43
Of the 43 parks where we can rate Dideric Cuckoo sightings, Lower Zambezi National Park ranks 34th at under 5%. The best odds are in uMkhuze Game Reserve (South Africa, about 30%), Tsavo West National Park (Kenya, about 20%) and iSimangaliso Wetland Park (South Africa, about 20%).
Same family: Cuculidae
The closest relatives of the Dideric Cuckoo that you can see in Lower Zambezi National Park (family Cuculidae, Cuckoos) are Senegal Coucal (about 10%), White-browed Coucal (about 10%) and Jacobin Cuckoo (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Dideric Cuckoo is recorded against all the birds logged in Lower Zambezi National Park (10 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.
