Melaenornis edolioides
Silhouette: Martin Bulla, based on François Desbordes' illustration · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
The northern black flycatcher (Melaenornis edolioides) is a small passerine bird in the flycatcher family, Muscicapidae. This is an insectivorous species which is a resident breeder in tropical Africa from Senegal to Ethiopia and south to Zaire and Tanzania.
The northern black flycatcher is found in moist wooded areas and cultivation. It nests in a hole or reuses the old nest of another species, and lays two or three eggs. Breeding takes place in the wet season. The northern black flycatcher is 20 centimetres (7.9 in) long. It is a large upright long-tailed flycatcher. The adult is uniformly black. Juveniles are blackish-brown with buff scaling.
The long square-ended tail helps to distinguish this species from two other all-black insectivores, the fork-tailed drongo and the shorter-tailed and red-eyed common square-tailed drongo. This flycatcher has a simple musical song and a thin tsee-whee call. Birds of The Gambia by Barlow, Wacher and Disley, ISBN 1-873403-32-1 Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Niokolo-Koba National Park | 🇸🇳 Senegal | |
| 2 | Queen Elizabeth National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 3 | Masai Mara National Reserve | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 4 | Lake Mburo National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 5 | Kibale National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 6 | Murchison Falls National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 7 | Kidepo Valley National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 8 | Serengeti National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 9 | Virunga National Park | 🇨🇩 Democratic Republic of the Congo | |
| 10 | Bwindi Impenetrable National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kampala | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 2 | Yaoundé | 🇨🇲 Cameroon | |
| 3 | Abuja | 🇳🇬 Nigeria | |
| 4 | Ouagadougou | 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso | |
| 5 | Serrekunda | 🇬🇲 Gambia |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Northern Black-Flycatcher sighting in Masai Mara National Reserve on a given day, based on 426 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 103rd 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–April, August and November
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Northern Black-Flycatcher in Masai Mara National Reserve on a given day, against about 10% in May–July, September–October and December–January, the lowest months.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Northern Black-Flycatcher sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
3rd of 10
Of the 10 parks where we can rate Northern Black-Flycatcher sightings, Masai Mara National Reserve ranks 3rd at about 10%. The best odds are in Niokolo-Koba National Park (Senegal, about 50%) and Queen Elizabeth National Park (Uganda, about 40%).
Same family: Muscicapidae
The closest relatives of the Northern Black-Flycatcher that you can see in Masai Mara National Reserve (family Muscicapidae, Old World Flycatchers, Robins, and Chats) are Sooty Chat (about 40%), White-browed Robin-Chat (about 30%) and African Gray Flycatcher (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Northern Black-Flycatcher is recorded against all the birds logged in Masai Mara National Reserve (426 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.
