Turdoides plebejus
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~50% in a week ~80%
The brown babbler (Turdoides plebejus) is a species of bird in the family Leiothrichidae. It is predominantly found in West Africa, but ranging from the Gambia to Kenya. The species is common across its range. The species is also known as the Sudan babbler.
The brown babbler was described in 1828 by Philipp Jakob Cretzschmar from a specimen collected in the Kordofan Province of Sudan. He originally placed it in the bulbul genus Ixos. The species is closely related to and forms a superspecies with the white-headed babbler of eastern Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea, and the arrow-marked babbler of central and southern Africa. The Old World babbler family Timaliidae has been the subject of much research and has been split by some taxonomic authorities. This move would place this species with the laughingthrushes in the family Leiothrichidae.
There are three recognised subspecies, the nominate race, platycirca and cincera. A fourth subspecies, uamensis, is synonymized with cincera. The brown babbler is a medium-sized Turdoides babbler, measuring 22–25 centimetres (8.7–9.8 in) in length and weighs around 52–80 grams (1.8–2.8 oz). The plumage...
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Niokolo-Koba National Park | 🇸🇳 Senegal | |
| 2 | Saloum Delta National Park | 🇸🇳 Senegal | |
| 3 | Mole National Park | 🇬🇭 Ghana | |
| 4 | Kidepo Valley National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 5 | Murchison Falls National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 6 | Lake Mburo National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 7 | Queen Elizabeth National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 8 | Kibale National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Accra | 🇬🇭 Ghana | |
| 2 | Maiduguri | 🇳🇬 Nigeria | |
| 3 | Ouagadougou | 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso | |
| 4 | Abuja | 🇳🇬 Nigeria | |
| 5 | Serrekunda | 🇬🇲 Gambia | |
| 6 | Cotonou | 🇧🇯 Benin | |
| 7 | Lomé | 🇹🇬 Togo |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Brown Babbler sighting in Mole National Park on a given day, based on 78 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 108th most-seen of the 266 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 50%, and over a week to about 80%, if each day is a fresh chance.
May and December
In those months about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Brown Babbler in Mole National Park on a given day, against about 10% in April, the lowest month. Those are among Mole National Park's driest months, with about 35 mm of rain a month against 220 mm in August. July has too few records to rate.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Brown Babbler 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 8
Of the 8 parks where we can rate Brown Babbler sightings, Mole National Park ranks 3rd at about 20%. The best odds are in Niokolo-Koba National Park (Senegal, about 50%) and Saloum Delta National Park (Senegal, about 30%). All parks ranked.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Brown Babbler is recorded against all the birds logged in Mole National Park (78 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.
