Pseudonigrita arnaudi
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
The grey-capped social weaver (Pseudonigrita arnaudi) is a sparrow-like liver-colored bird, with a pale grey crown, a dark grey bill, a whitish eye-ring, horn-colored legs, with some black in the wing and a light terminal band in the tail, that builds roofed nests made of straws, breeds in colonies in thorny Acacia trees, and feeds in groups gathering grass seeds and insects. Male and female have near identical plumage. DNA-analysis confirms it is part of the weaver family. It is found in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
The French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte described the grey-capped social weaver as Nigrita arnaudi in 1850. He chose the specific epithet to honor Joseph Pons d'Arnaud, the French explorer who had collected a specimen around 1841 near Juba on the White Nile, and sent it to the French Museum of Natural History. In 1903, the German zoologist Anton Reichenow assigned the species to his newly erected genus Pseudonigrita, because he considered P. arnaudi and P. cabanisi related to weaverbirds (Ploceidae), while the other species Nigrita bicolor, N. canicapillus, N. fusconota and N. luteifrons are negrofinches assigned... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ruaha National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 2 | Serengeti National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 3 | Kidepo Valley National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 4 | Masai Mara National Reserve | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 5 | Ngorongoro Conservation Area | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 6 | Amboseli National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 7 | Tsavo West National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 8 | Nairobi National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 9 | Tarangire National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 10 | Samburu National Reserve | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 11 | Tsavo East National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Gray-headed Social-Weaver sighting in Masai Mara National Reserve on a given day, based on 523 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 89th most-seen of the 398 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.
February–May and September–December
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Gray-headed Social-Weaver in Masai Mara National Reserve on a given day, against about 10% in January and June–August, the lowest months.
Between 11 am and 2 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Gray-headed Social-Weaver 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 11
Of the 11 parks where we can rate Gray-headed Social-Weaver sightings, Masai Mara National Reserve ranks 4th at about 20%. The best odds are in Ruaha National Park (Tanzania, about 50%), Serengeti National Park (Tanzania, about 40%) and Kidepo Valley National Park (Uganda, about 20%). All parks ranked.
Same family: Passeridae
The closest relatives of the Gray-headed Social-Weaver that you can see in Masai Mara National Reserve (family Passeridae, Old World Sparrows) are Yellow-spotted Petronia (about 10%), Northern Grey-headed Sparrow (about 10%) and Swahili Sparrow (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Gray-headed Social-Weaver is recorded against all the birds logged in Masai Mara National Reserve (523 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.
