Batis perkeo
Silhouette: Mathieu Pélissié · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~30%
The pygmy batis (Batis perkeo) is a very small insectivorous bird which finds its food foraging among leaves, it is a member of the wattle-eyes family, the Platysteiridae. It occurs in the dry savannahs of north-eastern Africa.
The pygmy batis, as its name suggests, is a tiny, rather dumpy but dapper black, white and grey bird with similarities to the flycatchers. The male has a bluish-grey head and back with a contrasting black face mask and short white supercilium above the yellow eye. The rump and lower back are spotted with white and the rump feathers are relatively long giving a fluffy appearance. It has black wings which have a broad white strip formed by the broad white edges to feathers of the median and greater coverts, and the inner secondaries and tertials. The tail is black but the outer tail feathers have white edges and tips. The underparts are white, broken with a narrow black breast band. The females are similar to the males but have a pale rufous-buff breast band and chin and the face mask, supercilium and wing stripe are buffy brown. The bill and legs are black. The pygmy batis has a body length of 8–9 cm (3.1–3.5 in) and a weight of 5–9 g (0.18–0... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tsavo West National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 2 | Samburu National Reserve | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 3 | Tsavo East National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 4 | Kidepo Valley National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 5 | Mkomazi National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 6 | Amboseli National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Pygmy Batis sighting in Mkomazi National Park on a given day, based on 8 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 220th most-seen of the 272 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.
September
In that month about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Pygmy Batis in Mkomazi National Park on a given day, against under 5% in March–April, June–August and October–January, the lowest months. That is one of Mkomazi National Park's driest months, with about 20 mm of rain against 150 mm in December. May has too few records to rate.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Pygmy Batis sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
5th of 6
Of the 6 parks where we can rate Pygmy Batis sightings, Mkomazi National Park ranks 5th at about 10%. The best odds are in Tsavo West National Park (Kenya, about 30%), Samburu National Reserve (Kenya, about 30%) and Tsavo East National Park (Kenya, about 10%).
Same genus: Batis
The closest relatives of the Pygmy Batis that you can see in Mkomazi National Park (genus Batis, turtleweeds) are Eastern Black-headed Batis (about 40%) and Chinspot Batis (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Pygmy Batis is recorded against all the birds logged in Mkomazi National Park (8 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.
