Calandrella cinerea
Silhouette: Gossipguy and T. Michael Keesey · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~30% in a week ~50%
The red-capped lark (Calandrella cinerea) is a small passerine bird that breeds in the highlands of eastern Africa southwards from Ethiopia and Somaliland. In the south, its range stretches across the continent to Angola and south to the Cape in South Africa.
The red-capped lark was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the larks in the genus Alauda and coined the binomial name Alauda cinerea. Gmelin based his description on "la Cendrille" from the Cape of Good Hope that had been described by the French polymath Comte de Buffon in 1778 and the "cinereous lark" that had been described by the English ornithologist John Latham in 1783. The red-capped lark is now one of six species placed in the genus Calandrella that was introduced in 1829 by the German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup. The genus name is a diminutive of Ancient Greek kalandros, the calandra lark. The specific epithet cinerea is from Latin cinereus meaning "ash-grey" or "ash-coloured".
The red-capped lark was formerly considered to be conspecific with the Mongolian lark (Calandrella... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Etosha National Park | 🇳🇦 Namibia | |
| 2 | Ngorongoro Conservation Area | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 3 | De Hoop Nature Reserve | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 4 | Amboseli National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 5 | Masai Mara National Reserve | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 6 | Serengeti National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 7 | Addo Elephant National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 8 | West Coast National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 9 | Nairobi National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 10 | Lake Nakuru National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 11 | Queen Elizabeth National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 12 | Golden Gate Highlands National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 13 | Kafue National Park | 🇿🇲 Zambia | |
| 14 | Hwange National Park | 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe | |
| 15 | Akagera National Park | 🇷🇼 Rwanda | |
| 16 | Virunga National Park | 🇨🇩 Democratic Republic of the Congo | |
| 17 | Kruger National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 18 | Garden Route National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 19 | Moremi Game Reserve | 🇧🇼 Botswana | |
| 20 | Chobe National Park | 🇧🇼 Botswana |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cape Town | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Red-capped Lark sighting in Nairobi National Park on a given day, based on 167 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 174th most-seen of the 371 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 30%, and over a week to about 50%, if each day is a fresh chance.
March and April
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Red-capped Lark in Nairobi National Park on a given day, against about 10% in May to February, the lowest months. Those are among Nairobi National Park's wettest months, with about 130 mm of rain a month against 15 mm in July.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Red-capped Lark sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
9th of 20
Of the 20 parks where we can rate Red-capped Lark sightings, Nairobi National Park ranks 9th at about 10%. The best odds are in Etosha National Park (Namibia, about 40%), Ngorongoro Conservation Area (Tanzania, about 30%) and De Hoop Nature Reserve (South Africa, about 30%). All parks ranked.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Red-capped Lark is recorded against all the birds logged in Nairobi National Park (167 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.
