Clamator levaillantii
Silhouette: Nicolas Huet le Jeune and Jean-Gabriel Prêtre (vectorized by T. Michael Keesey) · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~30%
Levaillant's cuckoo (Clamator levaillantii) is a cuckoo which is a resident breeding species in Africa south of the Sahara. It is found in bushy habitats. It is a brood parasite, using the nests of bulbuls and babblers. It was named in honour of the French explorer, collector and ornithologist, François Le Vaillant.
The cuckoo is 37.5 cm (15 in) long, longer tailed than pied cuckoo, and with a more heavily streaked throat. There are two colour morphs. The light morph is black above, faintly glossed bluish or greenish. The throat streaking may extend on to the sides. The primaries and rectrix tips are white. The dark morph is black except for the white primary patch and white spots on the outer tail feathers (these are absent in dark pied cuckoo. The juvenile Levaillant's cuckoo is brown above, rufous on the wing-coverts and rectrix tips, with a buff forehead, face and underparts, and the throat more streaked. The call is a low ringing kuwu-weer, kuwu-weer... and an excited ku-wi-wi-wi.
Levaillant's cuckoo is a brood parasite and the female lays her eggs in the nest of another species of bird, typically the southern pied babbler (Turdoides bicolor... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ouagadougou | 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso | |
| 2 | Accra | 🇬🇭 Ghana | |
| 3 | Harare | 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe | |
| 4 | Maiduguri | 🇳🇬 Nigeria | |
| 5 | Kampala | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 6 | Kigali | 🇷🇼 Rwanda | |
| 7 | Serrekunda | 🇬🇲 Gambia |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Levaillant's Cuckoo sighting in Murchison Falls National Park on a given day, based on 51 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 204th most-seen of the 424 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
March, June, September and November–December
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Levaillant's Cuckoo in Murchison Falls National Park on a given day, against under 5% in January–February, April–May, July–August and October, the lowest months.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Levaillant's Cuckoo sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
12th of 34
Of the 34 parks where we can rate Levaillant's Cuckoo sightings, Murchison Falls National Park ranks 12th at about 10%. The best odds are in Lake Mburo National Park (Uganda, about 20%), Akagera National Park (Rwanda, about 10%) and Mana Pools National Park (Zimbabwe, about 10%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Levaillant's Cuckoo is recorded against all the birds logged in Murchison Falls National Park (51 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.
