Euplectes capensis
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
The yellow bishop (Euplectes capensis), also known as Cape bishop, Cape widow or yellow-rumped widow, is a resident breeding Afromontane bird species. This common weaver occurs in less arid vegetated areas, such as fynbos, moist grassland and bracken-covered valleys at altitudes from sea level to the Ethiopian Highlands.
In 1760, the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the yellow bishop in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected from the Cape of Good Hope. He used the French name Le pinçon du Cap de Bonne Espérance and the Latin Fringilla Capitis Bonae Spei. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the yellow bishop. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Loxia capensis and cited Brisson's work. The specific name capensis denotes the Cape of Good Hope. This species is now placed in the genus Euplectes... Wikipedia →
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Yellow-rumped Widowbird sighting in Masai Mara National Reserve on a given day, based on 491 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 90th 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 and December
In those months about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Yellow-rumped Widowbird in Masai Mara National Reserve on a given day, against about 10% in March and June–October, the lowest months. Those are among Masai Mara National Reserve's wettest months, with about 90 mm of rain a month against 15 mm in July.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Yellow-rumped Widowbird sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
7th of 30
Of the 30 parks where we can rate Yellow-rumped Widowbird sightings, Masai Mara National Reserve ranks 7th at about 20%. The best odds are in Golden Gate Highlands National Park (South Africa, about 40%), West Coast National Park (South Africa, about 40%) and De Hoop Nature Reserve (South Africa, about 30%). All parks ranked.
Same genus: Euplectes
The closest relatives of the Yellow-rumped Widowbird that you can see in Masai Mara National Reserve (genus Euplectes, Bishops and Widowbirds) are Yellow-shouldered Widowbird (about 10%), Fan-tailed Widowbird (about 10%) and Jackson's Widowbird (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Yellow-rumped Widowbird is recorded against all the birds logged in Masai Mara National Reserve (491 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.
