Cecropis abyssinica
Silhouette: Andy Wilson · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~30%
The lesser striped swallow (Cecropis abyssinica) is a large swallow. It breeds in Sub-Saharan Africa from Sierra Leone and southern Sudan south into eastern South Africa. It is partially migratory with South African birds wintering further north. West African birds leave the north of the breeding range in the dry season.
This is a bird of wooded, mainly lowland habitats. The lesser striped swallow prefers less open habitats, and is replaced in montane grassland by the greater striped swallow, Hirundo cucullata. It is common and often found around human habitation.
The lesser striped swallow is 15–19 cm long. It has dark blue upperparts with a red rump and a rufous-chestnut crown, nape and sides of the head. The underparts are white with dark streaking, and the upper wings and underwing flight feathers are blackish-brown. The underwing coverts are tawny. The blackish tail has very long outer feathers; these are slightly longer in the male than the female. Juveniles are duller and browner, with less contrast and shorter outer tail feathers. There are five or six subspecies differing in the extent of the underpart streaking.
The lesser striped swallow has... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brazzaville | 🇨🇬 Republic of the Congo | |
| 2 | Kigali | 🇷🇼 Rwanda | |
| 3 | Maputo | 🇲🇿 Mozambique | |
| 4 | Dar es-Salaam | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 5 | Yaoundé | 🇨🇲 Cameroon | |
| 6 | Nairobi | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 7 | Durban | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 8 | Pretoria | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 9 | Zanzibar City | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 10 | Abuja | 🇳🇬 Nigeria |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Lesser Striped-Swallow sighting in Meru National Park on a given day, based on 7 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 219th most-seen of the 243 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
January–February and June
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Lesser Striped-Swallow in Meru National Park on a given day, against under 5% in March–April and September–December, the lowest months. Those are among Meru National Park's driest months, with about 20 mm of rain a month against 200 mm in November. May and July–August have too few records to rate.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Lesser Striped-Swallow sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
37th of 44
Of the 44 parks where we can rate Lesser Striped-Swallow sightings, Meru National Park ranks 37th at about 10%. The best odds are in uMkhuze Game Reserve (South Africa, about 70%), Gonarezhou National Park (Zimbabwe, about 40%) and Mikumi National Park (Tanzania, about 40%). All parks ranked.
Same family: Hirundinidae
The closest relatives of the Lesser Striped-Swallow that you can see in Meru National Park (family Hirundinidae, Swallows and Martins) are Barn Swallow (about 50%) and Wire-tailed Swallow (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Lesser Striped-Swallow is recorded against all the birds logged in Meru National Park (7 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.
