Fluvicola pica
Silhouette: Emily Willoughby · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
The pied water tyrant (Fluvicola pica) is a small passerine bird in the tyrant flycatcher family. It is found in Brazil, Colombia, French Guiana, Guyana, Panama, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad, and Venezuela, as a vagrant to Ecuador and possibly other areas as well.
The pied water tyrant was formally described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1779 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux from a specimen collected in Cayenne, French Guiana. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-colored 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 Muscicapa pica in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. The pied water tyrant is now placed in the genus Fluvicola that was introduced by the English naturalist William Swainson in 1827. The genus name is derived from a combination of Latin fluvius meaning "river" and -cola meaning "dweller". The specific epithet...
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Parque Estadual Encontro das Águas | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 2 | Caroni Swamp | 🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago | |
| 3 | El Impenetrable National Park | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 4 | Iberá National Park | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 5 | Madidi National Park | 🇧🇴 Bolivia | |
| 6 | Amboró National Park | 🇧🇴 Bolivia | |
| 7 | Henri Pittier National Park | 🇻🇪 Venezuela | |
| 8 | Chapada Diamantina National Park | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 9 | Tambopata National Reserve | 🇵🇪 Peru | |
| 10 | Iguaçu National Park | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 11 | Iguazú National Park | 🇦🇷 Argentina |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Barranquilla | 🇨🇴 Colombia | |
| 2 | Santa Cruz de la Sierra | 🇧🇴 Bolivia | |
| 3 | Rosario | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 4 | Asuncion | 🇵🇾 Paraguay | |
| 5 | Maracaibo | 🇻🇪 Venezuela | |
| 6 | Buenos Aires | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 7 | Panama City | 🇵🇦 Panama | |
| 8 | Valencia | 🇻🇪 Venezuela | |
| 9 | Campo Grande | 🇧🇷 Brazil |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | El Paso Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Pied Water-Tyrant sighting in Madidi National Park on a given day, based on 33 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 64th most-seen of the 239 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.
August and October
In those months about 40% of wildlife watchers report a Pied Water-Tyrant in Madidi National Park on a given day, against about 10% in January–February, April–June and November, the lowest months. March and December have too few records to rate.
Between 3 and 6 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Pied Water-Tyrant sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 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 Pied Water-Tyrant sightings, Madidi National Park ranks 5th at about 20%. The best odds are in Parque Estadual Encontro das Águas (Brazil, about 60%), Caroni Swamp (Trinidad and Tobago, about 40%) and El Impenetrable National Park (Argentina, about 30%). All parks ranked.
Same family: Tyrannidae
The closest relatives of the Pied Water-Tyrant that you can see in Madidi National Park (family Tyrannidae, Tyrant Flycatchers) are Great Kiskadee (about 40%), Tropical Kingbird (about 40%) and Boat-billed Flycatcher (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Pied Water-Tyrant is recorded against all the birds logged in Madidi National Park (33 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.
